I Met Her On A Thursday
by Nord Rage
Summary: Beca is a very kind girl, but also an introvert. Her peers have long since stopped attempting to socially interact with her, but one day, a girl tried. And for once, someone got through to her. Beca's life was completely turned upside down, and she truly couldn't tell if it was for the better or not. Rated M just to be safe, language possibly later on. Occasionally triggering.
1. Your Name

I met her on a Thursday. It was a half-day at school for parent-teacher conferences. It was my Sophomore year. Right at the start. September 12th, I think. I never liked highschool. I got through Freshman year fine, got decent grades and only had one nervous breakdown. The older kids weren't the best to us, but it wasn't unbearable. I was glad it was over. I wasn't looking forward to being back in school, though.

I was in Honors English class. I didn't want to be, but I got an A- in it in 9th grade. The teachers literally didn't let me go into the regular class. It didn't bother me much, it was just that the teacher was awful. Mean. Inconsiderate and unfair, in both grading and personality. The class was unenjoyable and consisted of mostly doing projects, extremely difficult tests, pop quizzes and oral presentations. I didn't speak a word in that room unless it was required for a grade.

I had no friends in general, therefore I had no friends in the class.

It wasn't sad. I was used to it. Since I didn't know anything else, I didn't miss anything. Or anyone.

It wasn't necessarily that nobody wanted to be my friend. People had tried before. Mostly in middle school. I just rejected it. Politely. I wasn't very social. I worked very hard in school and when I was at home, I mainly slept. Because I didn't want to be in reality for longer than necessary. I only had my dad, my parents got divorced in 7th grade. He didn't care that I didn't spend time with him.

My teacher assigned us another project. You were supposed to pick a partner. I never knew who to pick so I just waited until I was the last person available and got stuck with one of my peers, who never hid how aggrieved they were to be paired with me.

But this time, instead of waiting until I was the last option for some unlucky teenager, someone walked up to me.

I recognized her. I didn't go to middle school with her though. She must have shown up in Freshman year at some point. She looked popular. Why was she coming towards me? Was she going up to one of her friends over my shoulder? I briefly turned to look but didn't see anyone. When my eyes went back to her, she smiled brightly, teeth so perfectly white and straight it was almost unreal.

"Hi," She spoke to me when she stood directly in front of my desk. She gently placed her petite, dainty hands on the desk's surface and leaned slightly forward, looking right at me. Her dazzling smile hadn't faded.

"Uh, hi." I didn't know how to react to this. It took most of my effort just to keep my eyes on her and not be looking around the room awkwardly instead.

"Do you have a partner?" She asked innocently.

I paused for a second. Was she serious? This had never happened before. I was very taken aback but I tried not to let it show too much.

"Um... no."

"Can I work with you?"

_Why not?_ I thought to myself. "Sure." I wasn't social. This was both confusing and intimidating to me. I watched her as she took an empty chair nearby and dragged it to sit opposite me at my desk.

"Uh..." When at first I found it hard to look at her eyes directly, now I couldn't look away. I hoped she didn't think it was weird, but she seemed to be experiencing the same thing, "...I'm Beca."

It took her a few seconds to respond as well, and she blinked a few times as if returning to reality before she did so, "I know."

I expected her to introduce herself. I waited a few seconds to see if she would, but she just continued to stare at me. It felt like she was boring holes into my face. Then again I couldn't seem to turn my gaze from her either. She had blue eyes. Normally I thought those were pretty enough on their own, but hers were practically electric.

I let a very small smile come to my face, "What's your name?"

Another pause, "Oh!" She seemed slightly embarrassed that she hadn't told me hers and a light blush came to her cheeks, "Chloe."

For a good minute or so we just sat there, our eye contact not breaking once, before the teacher came over and asked us what we planned on doing for the project. Chloe came up with some lie about it on the spot. When Mrs. Miller left, we actually did start working. It was project on books we read over the summer, or a book that we both had read at some point. We spent the rest of class trying to find a book we had both read, and we couldn't.

The project was due a week from then. But we wouldn't have any class time to work on it. Chloe suggested that I go over to her house that night. I was still slightly intimidated but I said I would. I just wondered a little too late if that had been a bad idea.

* * *

Chloe neglected to tell me that her parents were never home after school, not until 6:30. So when I showed up there, she was the only one at her house. All of the anxiety I faced dreading being awkwardly introduced was for nothing.

We sat on her bedroom floor, our english books spread out around us, sitting cross-legged across one another. Again, we were doing that thing where we just stared at one another and it seemed like we couldn't look away. It was so strange that I didn't find it awkward. Normally I hated any type of eye contact and I avoided it at all costs.

Finally, we actually started working. We still had yet to even find a book we had both read at some point. She started spouting off random titles.

"Looking for Alaska, all of the Harry Potter books, the Hunger Games, The Fault In Our Stars, Oliver Twist," She had been staring off into space while she told me this, as if reading some invisible list. She paused after that and looked at me again, a smile spreading across her face before she added, "Fifty Shades of Grey, obviously."

I let myself laugh a little at that, finding my chest become oddly lighter at the sound of her giggling at her own humor. It was such a joyous sound. I had never replayed the sound of someone's laughter in my head before. My smile faded slightly. We stared at each other again.

"What about you?" She asked me after a few long seconds.

The way that she looked at me made me nervous and happy all at once. I hadn't felt genuinely happy in such a long time, and it took being with her to realize that. I had known Chloe for less than a day and I already felt like it had been much, much longer than that.

Instead of responding to her question, I asked her one that had been bothering me for hours, "How did you know my name?"

She raised an eyebrow at me, looking confused, "Huh?"

"When I told you my name, you said you knew it already." I tilted my head slightly at her, eyes narrowing, "How did you know it?"

"Oh," Though she looked very nonchalant her tone sounded slightly forced, "I just asked about you a while back."

I could tell that she was playing it off as less than it was, "Who did you ask?"

She had looked away from me for a moment, probably for the second time in an hour or so, but she looked back at me at the question, "Uh, Aubrey."

I knew who that was. She was popular. She wouldn't know my name. That seemed like a lie. But I could see how tense she was and I decided I would let this go. If it was important it might come up again later.

"Okay," I muttered under my breath. I saw her shoulders sag as if she had let out an exhale she had been holding in for a while.

"Books?" She asked, reminding me.

"Right, um... Bloomability, - terrible - Touching Spirit Bear, - awful - Hatchet, - boring -" I analyzed her expression for a second, noting that she looked pretty amused. A smirk was slowly spreading across her face. When I smiled she started laughing, again, a sound that seemed to be embedded into my brain and made my smile more genuine, "-in case you couldn't tell, these were all school assigned books. I never would have read them on my own."

"Really?" She asked, laughter dying down, "But it seems like you liked them so much!" I rolled my eyes at her sarcasm.

"I'm a good actress."

She stopped laughing but she didn't stop smiling, and we hadn't taken our eyes off one another, "Wait, so you really didn't like any books assigned to you for school?" She tucked some of her long amazingly red hair behind her ear before taking a strand of it onto one of her fingers and absentmindedly twirling it, the entire time not even glancing away from me for a single second.

"Well, I liked one that we read at the very end of eighth grade. My class wasn't smart enough to understand it but I asked if I could bring it home and I stole it from the school to read it over the summer."

She gasped theatrically, "Beca, you little thief!" Chloe playfully scolded me, making me smile again. She made me smile so easily. Nobody had ever been able to do that before, "What was it called?"

I thought for a second, "I think it was The River King. Or something like that."

She smiled ear-to-ear, her face lighting up and her eyes sparkling, "I read that!"

I hadn't expected that, it wasn't a well-known book. But I wasn't complaining, I liked it. "Really?"

"Yeah! I read that last summer!"

"So, are we doing our project on that then?"

"Well we haven't found any other books we both read, have we?"

"Nope."

We started working. We both had to write a pretty lengthy paper, and then make a display too. Then present that display to the class. Oh joy. Even though we were genuinely trying to work, we kept getting distracted and ended up just talking about completely unrelated topics until 6:15, when she told me that I had to go because her parents were coming home, I was a little confused at why I was so hesitant to leave.

She walked me politely to her front door and even opened it for me. I stepped outside and stood for a second on her porch, looking at her. She was smiling weakly. I returned it with a half-hearted grin before turning to walk home-

-when her voice stopped me, "I like it, by the way."

I spun around, eyes finding hers automatically, "Like what?"

"Your name."

* * *

**Hope you guys like this :) Chapters are gonna vary a lot in length and stuff but I really like this story, I have a bunch of it already typed up. And I could honestly just write about these two for like years on end and never get tired of it. Seriously I think I have a problem. **


	2. Getting Closer

I thought about her every day after that. No matter what I was doing, she was on my mind. While I worked on school things, all I could see was her smile. When I tried to listen to music, all I heard was her laugh. Everything reminded me of her, which frightened me a little. I had never experienced anything like this before. I didn't know how to respond to it, so I did my best to ignore it. Which just made me think about her even more.

I couldn't go to her house for the rest of the month because of something that was happening with her family. I didn't ask what it was, that would have been rude. So I only saw her at school - in English. And we sat on opposite sides of the room. It was agonizing. I spent the entire period just staring at the back of her head, wondering if she could tell I was looking but finding myself unable to turn my gaze away.

We still had to work on the project though. She came to my house instead until it was done. She seemed a bit more distant than she had been the first time we hung out. I can't quite describe it. We had fairly lengthy intervals of not saying anything and just staring at one another, though. Those were the things that I spent hours at a time thinking about at night, while I stared up at my ceiling trying to sleep. She consumed my entire brain at those times and I had absolutely no control over it.

Chloe sometimes saw me in the halls and would smile broadly, an expression that was incredibly infectious. She would force me to stop and talk to her, which I was more than willing to do, though I'm pretty sure it always made us both late for our next class on account of the fact we were nearly unable to pull ourselves from the conversation.

I can still distinctly remember what happened one day, I'm pretty sure it's embedded permanently into my memories. I couldn't forget it if I tried.

It was the end of the day and I was heading to the door, to leave the school and walk home. But I felt a hand grab mine, successfully terrifying me beyond belief, and I was spun around. The next thing I knew I had been engulfed in a very tight hug. I was confused but I hugged this person back, basically sure who it was though I wasn't positive.

When the person finally let me go I saw that it was in fact Chloe, absolutely beaming, her white teeth almost blinding. She enthusiastically told me about how she had gotten a very good grade on a test she hadn't studied for at all, in a class she wasn't doing very well in. I still couldn't comprehend the fact that she had just hugged me, so it took me a few seconds to coherently congratulate her. Following my response, she actually hugged me again, furthering my state of dysfunctionality. When she let me go that time, she had to leave and get on her bus.

For the rest of the day, or probably the rest of the week, all I could think about was that hug. She had hugged me so warmly and so tightly it was impossible to forget yet it was annoyingly impossible to exactly remember how it felt. She didn't hug me again for a while after that. Maybe she could tell how much it affected me and she took it the wrong way. I wasn't sure.

But all I knew was that it was fairly odd to be this hung up on one hug.

And it scared me.

* * *

It was so great spending any time with her. I went over to her house as much as possible but I never did meet her parents. She said that it wasn't important, and they didn't really care about any of her friends.

I found some things out about her. She really liked to read and she liked watching chick-flicks. She usually listened to music when she fell asleep, and she would sing only to herself when nobody else was home, which I thought was adorable but I didn't say so aloud. Her favorite thing in the world seemed to be rain, she said that whenever it did rain her chest felt lighter and she could barely stop smiling. Before she moved to my town she lived in New York, where she did acrobatics for most of her life. She didn't do it here, because we were a smaller town and we didn't have places for it. Her parents also didn't have the time to drive her. She claimed that it didn't bother her much but her eyes got distant whenever she talked about it.

I told her things about myself too, but I felt like she was more interesting than I was.

We were getting closer. It was such a great feeling. Every time I left her house, she would hug me, and I was ecstatic for the rest of the night.

I was starting to feel something though. And it was a little scary. I couldn't identify it. I felt stuff like this before but just for a few seconds, a day, tops. This was lasting for weeks on end.

I remember one day, we went to her house after school like we often did, and we sat on her couch together. She wanted to watch a movie but she didn't have any left on DVD, so she just flipped through channels. She stopped at something that seemed interesting.

It was a foreign movie. I don't remember much about it but I remembered that it started out at a wedding of some kind. There were these two couples, one of them was engaged, I think. Later on in the movie, things progressed and two girls got together instead. It was making me feel a little awkward so I pretended to be on my phone a lot of the time. I didn't know why it made me feel so weird. She seemed totally fine.

Chloe would make comments every now and then, like she often did. Usually it was just funny observations that made me smile. But one thing she said stuck with me. For a long long time.

There was one scene where the girls ran off together somewhere. It was just a brief romantic montage. I would glance up from my phone every now and then.

She sighed heavily, before mumbling to herself, "I just wish somebody would love me like that..."

I remember how tense that made me. I felt like I couldn't even move for a half an hour, straight. Because that one sentence stuck in my head. I didn't know why. But it was a little startling. I stared at her for the majority of the rest of the time I was there, trying to do it discreetly, memorizing every detail of her face.

When I had to leave, at around 6:15, and she gave me one of her hugs goodbye, it felt different than it ever had before. It lasted longer. I think it was a little tighter. When she closed the door, leaving me on her doorstep, I stood there for a few lingering seconds in an attempt to stop zoning out. It didn't really work. I practically stumbled home.


	3. Distancing

She started to get even more distant from me. I didn't understand why it was bothering me so much. I didn't understand why she was all I could think about, every second of every day. I didn't understand why I would automatically look for her whenever I walked into a room. I didn't understand why completely unrelated things reminded me of her. But mainly, I didn't understand why she was acting the way she was.

Why wasn't she talking to me as much? Was something wrong? Had I done something wrong? Was she okay? Did her more popular friends criticise her for spending time with me? Was she pressured to not interact with me?

Or was it on her own accord?

That was what was really getting to me. Did she not want to hang out with me, just because she didn't want to? Because she didn't _like_ it? Because she didn't like me?

I was far from focused in school. It seemed like in all of my classes I was either staring absentmindedly at my desk, thinking about her, staring out the door into the hallway to see if she may walk by, or just boring holes into the side of her head with my eyes during English.

It was getting colder out. It was the end of October. I remember distinctly walking out of school one day and having to wait for a long time for my dad to come get me, because he had to do something for his work. I stood near the door, hugging myself for warmth as the wind made me shudder, feeling too awkward to walk back into the building for warmth. I let my eyes wander frequently and look all around, partially for my dad's car, and partially for some way to keep myself occupied.

It was then that I noticed her. Chloe was sitting on a bench by one of the school's walls. She was only wearing a very thin long-sleeve shirt, and nothing else. I was donned in a heavy, winter-like jacket and I could feel my fingers numbing. I probably had goosebumps. She had that same expression on her face: nothing. It was so blank. I had never seen anything like it. And every time it was there, my worry almost consumed me entirely.

What was wrong with her?

Pushing aside all of the things within me telling me not to, I exhaled in preparation before walking towards her. She was staring intently at the sidewalk, her tense body scooted as far as possible on one side of the bench. It almost looked as if she was forcefully pushing herself against it for some reason.

She didn't notice me approaching. She didn't even notice me sit down next to her. She probably wouldn't have noticed me at all if I hadn't spoken up.

"Chloe..." I muttered under my breath, wondering if she could even hear me. Her teeth were chattering slightly. I could hear them.

She jumped a little where she sat, startled, before looking at me. It took a few seconds before I saw recognition show in her eyes. She gave me a smile, if you could even call it that, her lips barely moved. I couldn't tell, but her eyes seemed a little red and glossy. I felt my concern intensifying.

"Oh, hey Beca," She had been glancing at me before, but not at my eyes like she usually did, yet after she said my name she looked completely away. Her skin looked less tan than usual. Like the color had been drained from it.

Even when her voice was so lackluster and listless, hearing her say my name made my chest feel oddly lighter. I almost smiled but stopped myself, having a feeling that this wasn't the time. Something was up.

"Um..." I wasn't good with people and I definitely wasn't good with words. Though I wanted to much to help her in some way, in _any_ way, I was scared I wouldn't be able to. I didn't take my eyes from her for a second, observing her body movements.

She had balled up the ends of her sleeves in her fists, most likely to conserve warmth. She didn't look as put together as she usually did, her hair not straight as a pin like usual. There were dark circles around her eyes. The refreshing lightness I had experienced in my chest was now replaced with an uncomfortable tightening.

"Are you okay?" I wondered if she could tell just how hesitant and uncertain I felt about what I was saying. Did I want her to? Would it help show her just how worried she was making me?

Would that make her feel better?

To know that I cared?

She looked at me out of her peripheral vision. But her expression showed nothing to me about how she was feeling. I didn't know much about her. I wanted to know a lot more. I wanted to know about her family, who I still hadn't met, I wanted to know about what she liked to do in her spare time, what kind of music she liked, what her favorite color was, anything and everything.

"Yeah," She muttered under her breath. Now she wouldn't even keep me in the corner of her eye. She was staring at the ground with an odd level of intensity, " I'm..." She paused for a moment, her mouth hanging open, as if she almost said something she didn't want to. "...fine."

She wasn't fine. Anyone with eyes and even slight experience with socializing could tell she wasn't fine. But why was she lying? What was there to lie about? Did she not feel comfortable about whatever was on her mind to me? Or did she just not want to talk about it at all?

"Chloe I-" I stopped myself, not entirely sure what I even planned on saying. I just wanted to help her. I wasn't good with social things, especially not friendships or really just relationships in general. One of the main reasons for that was because I just wasn't motivated to try to keep the relationship stable or I didn't want it to remain that way. But with Chloe it was different. Everything was different with her and I genuinely wasn't sure why. I wanted her to trust me. I already wholly trusted her for some reason.

"-I need to go." Chloe abruptly said. She got to her feet and I noticed her wince slightly when she did so. I tensed up. What was wrong with her?

"Wait!" I blurted out, watching as she started to walk away. She didn't stop. For some reason I couldn't bring myself to follow her.

I knew I should have.

But I just watched her go.

* * *

We switched seats in English the next week. I hadn't talked to her since that day on the bench, she just avoided me. I was an absolute wreck. I just wanted her to seem okay again. She wasn't talking to her old friends, which reassured me for some reason: she wasn't just ignoring me, she was isolating herself from everyone. But that wasn't good for you.

I noticed her pick the seat farthest in the back of the room, in the corner. It took all of my effort to turn my gaze away from her, just like it usually did. I wanted so badly to sit at her side, but I wondered if the feeling was mutual. I didn't want to pressure her.

But apparently my caution was misplaced, because I heard her speak up.

"Beca," At the sound of my name, especially coming from her, I jumped slightly where I stood before turning to face her, trying to hide how frantic I felt. She gestured to the empty desk at her side. I looked at it, wondering if she was joking or something. I was just too worried, too tense, too scared I would say the wrong thing to her or somehow make her feel worse.

But when she raised an eyebrow at me because I was standing still for too long, I was practically magnetized to the chair next to her. I sat down. She was barely looking at me. I couldn't help but remember the first time we went to her house together and our eye contact was difficult to break. Now she just would barely glance in my direction. I did my best not to stare at her. I had already practically memorized the outline of her profile.

I knew I needed to talk to her. Something was seriously wrong. It was obvious to me, and probably others, but they didn't care about her enough to question it.

But I cared.

"Chloe um..." I was going to start stammering for words again. I was going to trail off and not ask what I planned to. I kept my mouth open. Maybe that would make me talk.

It didn't. I just sat there, with my mouth agape like an idiot. She didn't notice.

But when she spoke, it clamped shut immediately.

"Hey... so..." She was wearing heavy clothing. It wasn't that cold in the school, but freezing outside, "...do you think we could hang out sometime..?" She sounded nervous. Why would she be nervous? If anything I should be nervous. Even though she was talking to me, she didn't move her eyes from the floor. It was like they were permanently glued there.

"Uh yeah, yeah totally." I hoped that didn't sound too eager. But, honestly, I was. We hadn't had any contact in what felt like forever. I felt like it was my fault somehow. But now she was willingly asking to spend time with me.

"Cool... um could we do it at your place, though..?" She was actually way more nervous than I thought at first. I still didn't know why. If she wasn't such an abruptly reserved person at the time she would have been quaking in her seat.

"Of course."


	4. What's wrong?

I was glad that my dad wasn't home after school. For some reason I really didn't want him present when she was over. Inside I was overly ecstatic that Chloe was there, that she was with me, sitting on the couch in my room, her hands clutching the ends of her sleeves with what seemed to be all of her might while her eyes stared at my carpet.

I was so worried. I felt a constant pressure on my chest that made it hard to breathe, hard to eat, hard to sleep and hard to even move. Never had I experienced any emotion that intense, it was so weird and unwanted.

She was with me now. In my house. In my room. We were alone. And she wouldn't be able to leave easily. She wouldn't be able to just walk away from me like she did last time. Now was the chance to really question her. To really get some answers and to really sate my curiosity.

But even though I knew the circumstances were better than last time, for some reason I was even more nervous.

Then again, when wasn't I nervous when I was around her?

"Chloe?" I spoke up. My voice was weak.

There was an abnormally long pause before she responded to me. My eyes were absolutely glued to her while hers didn't glance my way once, "Yeah..?"

Last time this happened, I asked her if she was okay. That question got me nowhere. So I asked something different, something more direct, something that was harder to avoid.

"What's wrong?"

An expected silence. She sighed to herself, shakily, starting to bounce her leg. It might have been because her entire body was starting to shudder, and she wanted to hide how distraught she was. I couldn't tell for sure, no matter how hard I studied her.

"Um..." I don't think I had ever listened to something more intently than I was listening to her at that moment, "...it's just... school. School stuff. A lot of homework. Stress."

I opened my mouth, almost screaming at her, accusing her of lying, but I held my tongue. It was getting frustrating. I just wanted to help her. I just wanted to know what was going on with her so that I could fix whatever had happened, or try to. I would try my absolute hardest.

"Chloe, we both know that's not true."

I was a bit taken aback when she looked up at me. Our eyes met, "I don't know that, no." We had that same, seemingly unbreakable eye contact as we had when we first met. I couldn't look away. The feeling was mutual for her. I could tell. A silence spread.

"You don't have to hide things from me..." In truth I really wasn't sure what I was searching for. There was no way to predict what she might say. I wasn't sure if I should be terrified, but I was.

"I'm not hiding anything." If she was lying, she was a really good liar. We had complete eye contact, and her expression was absolutely void of any emotion.

"Why did you walk away from me last week? That day outside school?" I knew that question got to her when her eyes moved from me for a second before returning, "I called out to you but you ignored me and kept going. Then you barely spoke to me for a while."

The air in the room became so thick with tension I thought I was going to sink into the floor. Clearly she didn't want to talk about it, but I had an ongoing feeling that it would help her, no matter how reluctant she acted.

"I had to go to home." Was all that she said. Still, dead-faced.

"Why didn't you just tell me that then?" I asked her.

I watched as Chloe briefly ran her palm down her face. Her eyes looked slightly glossy. My chest tightened and it started to hurt to even breathe. It hurt to see her like that. I watched as her eyes moved to the clock on my nightstand, checking the time, before she got to her feet.

"Where are you going?" I stood as well, having an impending fear that she planned on running from me again. I just wanted her to open up. I wanted to help, I wanted to know that she was safe.

"I-I'm supposed to go out to dinner with my parents tonight, I should really head back home so that I can get ready..." With every word she inched closer to my bedroom door, it looked as if she was trying to be inconspicuous about intending to leave, but I could tell what she planned.

"Chloe, no, don't leave again, please just tell me. Nothing bad's gonna happen, I swear." I walked closer to her, ready to stop her if necessary.

"I can't be late, I'll get in-" She reached for my doorknob and I instinctively grabbed her arm, just to stop her for a moment, to draw her attention away from leaving. She stopped, yes. But she also yelped out in pain. It was brief. And she clamped a hand over her mouth immediately afterwards. If she had really wanted to, she could have left at that moment and I would have been too taken aback to do anything to stop her. But she remained standing. Clearly, she did want my help to an extent.

I promised to myself that I would give it to her.

I kept my eyes on her to gauge her reaction, gently gripping the edge of the sleeve of her right arm - the one I had grabbed. I pulled it up, watching tears start to cling to her eyelashes and nearly teem from her eyelids the farther I moved the thin fabric.

Even though I didn't want to see it, and I wished it wasn't there more than anything in the world, I wasn't that surprised. I didn't want to believe it though. I didn't want it to be true.

I held back a gasp. There were bruises. Varying in coloration, and recentness. One was yellowish, healing. Another was a deep purple, one was blue. Some were in blob-like shapes. Others definitely formed the shape of fingers. Like someone had grabbed her far too roughly, and most likely tugged as well. My jaw dropped. There were also some other things that caught my attention even more. It almost made me burst into tears.

Cuts. There were cuts. Near her wrists. I couldn't tell how deep they were and I couldn't bring myself to examine them too closely. My vision was getting a bit blurred by tears anyway, making it hard to do so. I didn't want to believe this. I cared about Chloe. I know I barely knew her at the time but I felt like we had been best friends for years and years. I felt a stronger connection to her than I ever had with anyone in my life. The cuts were fresh. But in the quick glance that I caught, I vaguely saw older scars lingering on other parts of her arm. I released the sleeve of her fairly baggy shirt, and it dropped back down, successfully covering up all of that pain.

"Chloe... I..." What was I supposed to say? What was I supposed to do? I had never had to deal with something even slightly resembling this situation in any way. I felt myself starting to panic, wanting to break down. It was overwhelming.

"Beca-" She spoke so quickly that her voice broke and shook, she sounded awful. I could hear so much hurt and pain and terror and trauma behind that one word, just my name, it was heart wrenching, "-please. Don't tell anyone... just... act like you never saw this, I..." She was trying so hard to keep it together. It was admirable. But deeply saddening as well, "...I shouldn't have shown you, nobody was supposed to know about this I wasn't going to t-tell anybody,"

"Stop," I told her. My voice was firm enough to stop her rambling, "If you hadn't told me, you might have died. Now... Chloe..." I thought that I knew the answer to the question I planned on asking, but you could never be too careful. I didn't want to go around making assumptions after the surprise I had just recieved, "...who did this to you?"

She let out a sole chuckle at me like I was an idiot, "I did."

She was referring to the cuts. I wasn't.

"N-no..." I took a deep breath. How could she have done that to herself? Hurt herself? Just thinking of her putting a blade to her own skin made my head start to hurt and chills start to go up and down my spine, "I mean the bruises."

She inhaled sharply and held the breath inside of her so long I was worried she might suffocate. But when she let it out, it formed frantic, jumbled, nearly incoherent words, "I can't tell you".

"Yes you can, Chloe. Please tell me. I want to help." The sincerity I managed to put into my voice would have been enough to coerce anyone into doing anything.

"I-I..." I watched the tears start to fall from her eyes, seeing them roll down her cheeks and drip of her chin, seeing her lip quivering and her composure falling apart. I wanted to know but I didn't want to push her.

"Chloe, just..." I sighed, moving my hand forward to intertwine my fingers with her in a hopefully comforting way. Her eyes moved to our hands and she kept her gaze there, expression unreadable.

"It's my parents." She suddenly blurted out. It was so fast and so quaking I almost didn't catch it. But in the dead silence of my room, where every sound seemed to be amplified, it was crystal clear. And it made my chest constrict so much I thought I might be having a heart attack.

"Well, Chloe, we need to call the police they can't just-" I started to speak up but stopped short at the abrupt emotional breakdown she looked like she was about to have.

"No, no no no, you can't tell the cops, please. I told them I wouldn't ever tell anybody, this has been going on for years and years it's just how it is. As long as I get good grades and behave and have friends and follow rules then nothing ever happens usually and life at home is totally fine nothing is wrong, you can ask either of my parents and they'll say the same thing."

My mouth was agape and I kept trying to form words but I couldn't quite manage it. The expression on her face and her pure, utter distress had put me at a loss for words and at a loss for actions. I knew that informing the authorities was the only thing that would do much real good, but after what she had just spouted out, I doubted she would cooperate with them in any way.

"That sounded like the most rehearsed thing I've ever heard in my entire life." I told her in a rather cold tone.

"N-no, i-it's not, I told you everything I know and that's the truth-" It looked like she was reaching for my doorknob, but from behind her back this time.

"-That can't be true Chloe. You don't have to lie to me. You're being abused. You're just too scared to tell me the truth or to go to anyone because... what? You don't want to go into foster care or something? Don't you have any other family that would take you in?" I asked her, my voice gentle and soft even though I was asking some rather hardening questions.

She responded to me very quickly, almost too quickly, "Yes but I don't want to go with them because they're no better, and no I don't want to go into foster care that sounds terrifying, don't you hear the stuff about how screwed up kids get when they're in there? How many criminals that you see on the news went through foster care? A lot of them."

I didn't know what to tell her. If she really didn't want to go to the cops and she didn't want to go into foster care, what could I do for her? "Chloe... that doesn't mean that..." I sighed, not knowing what to say. I still held her hand in mine and I gripped it tighter for a second, "...can't you just run away, then?"

"And go where?" Her voice cracked and the sound broke my heart. Tears would still occasionally roll down her cheeks but she was keeping it together by nothing short of a miracle, "If I went to anyone else in my family they would just send me home. None of my friends will, they haven't talked to me in weeks..." I felt myself start to become more protective than I ever had in my entire life when she let out a single sob, her free hand moving to her face to cover her mouth, "...I don't know what to do..."

For the first time in our entire friendship, I was the first one to hug her. I tugged on her hand and brought her against me, wrapping my arms around her as tightly as I could without causing pain. She hugged me back and let herself cry. She felt so frail and weak and breakable.

I could only think of one solution to her problem. It wasn't likely to work out very well, but I was willing to try anything to help her.

"Chloe, you can stay here. With me. Alright?"

"W-what? N-no that's..."

"Please."

She didn't respond verbally but she stopped crying, for a good minute or so. When she started again, I vaguely felt her nod into my shoulder. I would keep her safe. Her parents wouldn't be able to get to her again.

But there was still the fact that she hurt herself.

Could I prevent her from doing that?


	5. Dial Tone

I wanted her to sleep in my bed. But she said no, and insisted she sleep on my couch. I talked to my dad when he got home and he didn't really care about her staying, surprisingly enough.

She was tired that night. Went to sleep at 9ish. I, for one, couldn't sleep at all. I simply laid in the middle of my queen sized bed and stared at my ceiling, thinking of her, like I usually did. The fact she was one room from me, though, made it even harder to try to stop. Impossible, really.

I couldn't believe her parents were doing that to her. How could anyone willingly hurt Chloe? She was so sweet and innocent, it was like she couldn't do anything wrong if she tried. More than anything I wanted to confront them, even though I knew that wouldn't do anything, just so I could find out why they would do this to their only daughter. What had she done to them? Did they feel guilty? Did they know it was wrong? I had so many questions.

I almost jumped out of my skin when I heard my door gently knocked on and opened. I sat up and turned to face it, not surprised to see Chloe standing there, hugging herself tightly, looking so broken and scared. I waited for her to talk first.

"Um..." She wouldn't look at me, which I noticed seemed to be something she did when she was really upset. I just wanted her to be happy. Had she ever been truly happy the entire time I had known her? The abuse seemed to be ongoing. Maybe it had just gotten worse recently and harder to hide, "...can I sleep in here, just for tonight?"

I nodded immediately, "Yes of course, I told you you could sleep in here if you wanted." I said in a gentle tone. I started to get out of my bed, to go sleep on the couch, but she stopped me by closing the door behind her. I raised an eyebrow.

"I-I meant..." Her eyes moved to my bed, then to me, "...with you."

"Oh," For some reason I hadn't anticipated that. My bed was certainly big enough for two people but I just thought she would be uncomfortable. I scooted to the edge of my bed, leaving a bigger spot for her, "Sure."

She walked towards me very slowly and sat down on the bed for a minute or so before actually scooting beneath the covers. I couldn't help but stare at her for a while. I knew it was getting kind of weird so I brought my gaze back to the ceiling, where it had been before she came in. It seemed to be easier getting to sleep for some reason, now that she was at my side. I wondered if she was having trouble sleeping too, maybe from nightmares. That might explain why she had come into my room.

We laid there for a long time and after what must have been over an hour I assumed she had fallen asleep. Her back was turned to me. It seemed like she was on the very edge of my bed and like she would fall off if she moved any more.

But after a while, I noticed that she was shaking. She was crying. And she was trying_ so_ desperately to keep it together. My heart shattered. I turned on my side to face her and she must have noticed the movement, since she stopped for a moment. I could tell it was from shame, and embarrassment, not having wanted to be seen in such distress.

I scooted towards her and wrapped my arms around her middle, but immediately drew back when she winced slightly. She had either been abused there too, or she had... done things to herself... there. She turned over and our eyes locked. Her mouth was open like she planned on saying something, but she never did. Tears continued to stream down her cheeks.

I wanted to hug her but decided against it, for fear of unintentionally causing her pain. Instead, I found one of her hands beneath the covers and I grasped it tightly with both of mine, giving her a very weak smile that she didn't return in any way, not that I had expected her to.

Eventually we both fell asleep. I can't really remember who did first. It took a while, though. I'm an incredibly heavy sleeper. Nothing wakes me up except my alarm clock, thankfully.

So the next morning, when I found her not at my side, and not even in my house, I knew that she must have snuck away during the night.

I literally ran to school that day. I needed to know she was okay, and that she was there.

She was. Thank God. I saw her in English. She looked just as upset as usual, and she walked in alone, not with her usual friends. She didn't look at me when she sat at my side. I noticed how carefully she did it, like she was overly-aware of every move she was making. She was hurt. I could tell. My heart had leapt into my throat.

I didn't know what to do, or what to say, or if I should do or say anything. I just sat there, fidgeting uncomfortably, not at all paying attention to what was being said, praying that Chloe would say something first so I didn't have to endure this unbearable uncertainty. She didn't. And when class ended, she left. I didn't see her for the rest of the day.

When I got home I looked up her name in the phonebook and managed to find it. If her parents answered I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but I needed to talk to Chloe, and I couldn't stop kicking myself for not saying something during school. I was just too scared. I wasn't good with situations like this. I was actually incredibly proud of myself for the conversation we had the day before.

I dialed the number as I sat in my room, on my bed, clutching the phone tightly with white knuckles as I planned out what I was going to say. I looked at the clock. It was only 2:35. Chloe said her parents didn't get home until 6:30 every night. At least that was relieving. She had some time to herself before they came home and terrorized her.

I held my breath when somebody answered. There was a brief pause before I heard her voice, "Hello?" It was steadier than I had heard it in a while. Probably because she thought she was going to be talking to a stranger.

"Chloe." That was all I said.

"Beca?" Her voice became hushed and quick, the terror showing through again, the distress, "Why did you call here? What do you want?" Though those words would have sounded harsh coming from anyone else, it broke my heart to hear them come from her. Because I knew that wasn't what she wanted to say. She wanted to ask for help. Right?

"I meant to say something to you in class today but I didn't, I'm sorry."

"Beca I really can't talk right now-"

"-Chloe please just listen to me, I'm worried sick."

"I can't-"

"-Why did you leave last night? I told you that I could keep you here and nothing bad would happen. Did your parents contact you or something?"

"No, no... I just realized that I should really be at home..."

That was a lie and I knew it. But I didn't say that. "Please just come back here, you're not safe where you are."

"Yes I am. I don't need your help, Beca." Even though I knew that what she said wasn't entirely true, it hurt to hear, and I went silent for a while. I didn't know how to respond to that.

"Chloe... why are you..." I sighed, "...it seems like you hate me, sometimes."

She responded immediately, her voice more genuine than it had been this entire conversation, "I don't hate you. I hate me."

"Chlo-" My words were cut off by a dial tone. She had hung up on me.

I found myself fighting back tears.


	6. Miles And Miles Away

She didn't come to school for the entire week. She just wasn't there. I felt like I was going insane. I didn't see her anywhere, in the halls, in English, walking home, nothing. I felt worse than I ever had in my entire life, I had no explanation, nowhere to look, no idea where she could have gone and I was too scared to knock on her front door on account of her parents potential hostility.

But after two straight weeks I felt I was going to lose my mind. I was on the verge of tears every second of every day. I got three hours of sleep at best every night. It was slowly killing me from the inside out.

I finally had to check. I needed to know where she went, what happened to her. So one day I walked to her house. And I almost had a heart attack.

There was a for-sale sign on the front lawn. Boxes both full and empty were scattered around. There was even a moving truck parked out front. I stopped where I stood, my jaw dropping, my entire body starting to shake. Was that why she wasn't at school? Had she moved to another state, or across the neighborhood?

Would I ever see her again?

I ran to her doorstep and I didn't even care who might answer the door. Right as I raised my fist to knock on the door, a voice stopped me.

"No, don't." I knew who that was, I just didn't understand what she was saying. I turned around quickly to see Chloe standing there. She had a backpack on and she kept looking to her left and right, making sure her parents didn't see, no doubt.

"Chloe where have you been?" I asked her, my voice barely more than a desperate whisper. I wondered if she could see just how distraught I was and how panicked I was becoming.

"I'm moving," She tried to sound nonchalant. But I could tell it was forced, "My dad got a better job, out of town."

I felt my breathing starting to quicken and become uneven. I was terrified, "Out of state?"

She let out an exhale and I started to notice how glossy her own eyes were getting. The pain in the air was palpable and mutual, "...Beca, you should leave. This is just..."

"Chloe plea-"

"-you're making this harder than it needs to be."

"Please don't leav-"

"-I don't have a choice, Beca, you think I want to go?" Her voice broke.

"No... but I... I'll be worried about you every day and I won't be able to function properly if you leave, Chloe, I wanted to be closer friends with you, years from now I hoped we would be in each others lives and I... please stay..."

"It's not my choice." She said firmly. Her lip was starting to quiver, "M-my parents didn't give me any say, obviously." She let out a sole, weak, bitter laugh, "I guess I'm just worthless."

I remembered the cuts that were still on her wrists and it made a tear roll down my cheek without my consent. She stared at it oddly, "No you're not. You're amazing."

We stared at each other for a while. She was struggling for words, but she managed something out, "My parents say the opposite. It hurts so much. And the worst part is, I'm starting to get used to it." She wiped at the corner of her eye even though I didn't see any tears there yet.

"You shouldn't get used to it because it isn't true..." I took a step closer and she eyed me in a weird way, "...Chloe... I don't want to just watch you go, alone, with people that are hurting you and putting your life in danger every day. I don't want you living in fear... you don't deserve that, nobody does."

"Beca I've lived with this since I was 11, I've learned how to live with it, and look, I'm still alive five years later."

"That doesn't relieve me."

I heard a voice call out to her and I saw her tense up entirely.

"I have to go now. I'm..." She was backing away but she obviously looked like she didn't want to, "...I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."

"Chloe no please don't," I knew she had no other options. She had nowhere else to go. No matter how much I wanted her to stay I knew that there was no realistic solution that involved her staying here, "T-take me with you or something, I feel like I can't just see you go knowing that you're getting abused still and that it might get worse and that there won't be anything I can do if you're miles and miles away."

"You know that isn't going to happen. We both do. I need to go."

"But I didn't know... you should have told me, I might have been able to do something, I just..." I found myself nearly having a breakdown, speaking so fast it was almost incoherent, my entire body starting to shake uncontrollably.

"I guess you never know when you're going to be seeing someone for the last time." She practically whispered this it was so quiet, but I managed to hear. My chest hurt and my head was starting to throb erratically, I had never felt so helpless.

She turned around and headed to the car in the driveway. I stood still, unable to move for what felt like hours, but when I spotted her parents I got scared. And I left.

And I cried.


	7. Away

I had no way of contacting her. I didn't have a phone number, I didn't have an address, nothing. She had dropped off the face of the earth. I didn't even know where she moved to.

I thought about her every day. I got mediocre grades in all of my classes because I just didn't focus on anything that was being said. They weren't so bad that my dad found out though. Even if he did there wouldn't have been a punishment. He didn't care about that stuff. He was too wrapped up in his own little world and I guess he just assumed I kept my grades up. Whatever.

I felt so alone. Chloe had been all that I had. I still didn't have any friends and I had bad relationships with my parents, my dad got sole custody over me after the divorce and my mom never spoke to me nowadays. I know I had been like this before I met Chloe, and yes, I lived with it just fine. But after experiencing what it was like to care for someone so much, and to know that person cared about you, and to know that you could talk to them whenever you wanted about whatever you wanted, it was a good feeling. A feeling I lost.

Every night I had dreams about seeing her. Some were good, where she came back and wasn't with her parents, and we would just spend time together. Others were bad, where she came back but didn't speak to me, didn't remember me, or didn't care about me. The worst ones were when I somehow found out that her parents had beat her to death or that she had cut herself too deeply and bled out. I always woke up from those, sweating, on the verge of tears and almost unable to breathe. The best ones involved things of a different nature. Where Chloe would come back, and instead of continuing our friendship, she progressed things further.

In her absence I was becoming increasingly aware of just how much I cared about her. It wasn't at a normal friendship level. I thought she was the most beautiful person I had ever met. Even after she showed me the darkest parts of her, and even after I knew that her life wasn't perfect, I still wholly considered her to be. I viewed her as strong, admirable, amazing. She endured so much, and kept her head up high for so long. It was saddening to know that she was still living with the abuse she shouldn't be. It tore me apart. I cried often. Hell, if I ever even saw someone with blue eyes like hers I almost burst into tears.

I knew that this reaction wasn't normal. Sure, I was upset she had left, but it shouldn't have flipped my entire life upside down. It shouldn't have made me an absolute emotional wreck for months and months on end, no matter how hard I tried to forget about it and continue like how things used to be before I even knew who she actually was. I knew that my behavior wasn't healthy but I couldn't do anything about it.

I had never had feelings this powerful before. Not even for my parents, or other members of my family. No, Chloe was special. Only she could make me feel like this: so head over heels and absolutely powerless at the same time.

I needed her. I wanted her back. I wanted to hold her hand so tightly it broke my wrist. I wanted to waste Fridays and weekends away with her. I wanted to just show up at her doorstep and spend the entire day with her, if she still lived where she used to, and if her parents wouldn't scream at me. All day every day I wanted to hug her. It was a terrible urge that I knew I couldn't have fixed. She was gone, miles away, exactly how far, I had no way of knowing. Instead I would hug myself, tightly, alone in my bed every night when I was left alone with my thoughts of her and they ate me alive until the next morning. They then continued to consume me as I wandered, emotionless, throughout school.

I felt like I couldn't live without her. Not normally, at least.

But somehow, I managed. I managed for the entire last half of Sophomore year, and the entire summer after that, and even a few months as a Junior. I did also force myself to get my driver's license because I knew I would kick myself for years if I didn't do that. Dad was proud of me for it, and he had gotten promoted at work, and I guess he had a sudden craving to splurge on stuff and he got me a car. It was used, and pretty trashy, but it was a car. I was one of the few people in my grade that had one. But I wasn't that grateful. Where was I going to go? I didn't have any friends, I didn't have a job, and I walked to school because it was one block away. I obviously thanked him for it, I'm not a brat. It was just not that useful.

I wanted to see her. I didn't know what I was going to do if I did, but I just wanted to. I needed to.

I felt like I would die if I didn't.

* * *

It was a long shot, and I knew that it most likely wouldn't do anything but make me upset. But I had heard some of the popular girls in school talking about how one of their "old friends" had moved back to town. I looked at them and saw that they were some of the people that used to hang out with Chloe.

It wasn't likely. In fact, it was very _un_likely. But I needed to know. My hopes were skyrocketing. I was so frantic to get out of school, as soon as the bell rang I literally bolted from my seat. I got into my car and drove straight to Chloe's house, the entire time gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles and pushing the speed limit.

I also kept thinking to myself,_ What are you going to do if she is there? What are you going to say? And if she isn't there, are you just going to break down? Again?_

My thoughts didn't dissuade me. If anything they just made me drive faster. I didn't stop at stop signs, I didn't look before I turned, I didn't put my blinkers on, I'm surprised to this day that I didn't kill anybody.

But I realized it was all moderately justified. Because there was a moving truck parked outside their house again. There was no for sale sign on their lawn anymore. Had someone else bought it? Or was that too big of a coincidence? I wasn't sure, but just knowing that Chloe might be in that house was enough to make me almost go insane. I pulled up on the opposite side of the street and got out of the car, running across the street but stopping still on her doorstep.

What if it actually wasn't her in there? What if some other family had moved in? I was an awkward person when it came to interactions with strangers, especially when I was this excited and terrified and hopeful. I couldn't bring myself to knock. What if it actually was Chloe and one of her parents answered the door? I had still never met them. In fact, I had never really seen their faces either. I was scared of them nonetheless. If it wasn't Chloe I knew that I was going to cry for days on end because of the fact I got so ecstatic for no reason at all.

It was only after a few minutes that I started to hear a commotion coming from inside. It was muffled and I couldn't really make out what was going on. I heard some things crashing and banging. Now I really felt weird. Should I leave? Or stay? Let myself in? I couldn't decide on what to do, my fists clenching tightly in my uncertainty.

That was when I heard the shouting. It was mainly coming from a man. Again, I couldn't understand it. But it got me worried. What if this was Chloe, and her parents were screaming at her, hitting her? Shouldn't I help? Shouldn't I go inside and make them stop, or get her out of there, at least?

Finally, pushing aside the rest of my indecision, I reached for the doorknob-

-only to almost have a heart attack when the door swung open and nearly gave me a bloody nose. I took a step back, incredibly startled, and becoming even more so when I saw Chloe standing there. She looked terribly distraught, her eyes red and puffy, her hair disheveled and her face so full of emotion it made my chest constrict. But she still looked absolutely gorgeous.

Her jaw dropped when she saw me, and she practically skidded to a stop when she had previously looked ready to bolt. We both just stood there, staring at one another, not speaking and not moving, seemingly unable to do either. Until someone behind her shouted. It was the same man as before. He shouted out an insult, and then a threat. I heard footsteps - angry footsteps - heading straight for us. I could see Chloe start to panic.

She spun around and slammed the door shut, her breathing becoming erratic. She turned back to me and grabbed my hand tightly, making me tense up, and she said to me in a low tone: "Take me somewhere nobody knows me."

I was at a loss for words for a few seconds before I stammered out, "Where do you want to go?"

She responded immediately with, "Away."

I nodded shakily, pulling her alongside me across the street and into my car. Right as I turned the key in the ignition, I saw the front door of the house open, and an adult man standing there. His facial features resembled Chloe's. I knew it was her father. He looked... evil. Dangerous. How the hell could _that _guy be Chloe's dad? His eyes moved to my car but he didn't make any move to follow me.

Apparently I had stayed in the same spot for too long because Chloe suddenly slammed her foot onto the gas pedal. The abrupt acceleration greatly startled me and I was jolted back to reality, gripping the wheel and gaining control of the car. I wasn't sure what to do or where to go, but I knew I had to protect her. No matter what. I suddenly felt such an overwhelmingly strong compulsion to keep her safe, and to talk to her, and to help her.

We didn't speak to one another the entire ride. I got on the highway and I just drove. I drove until the sun was setting, until the sky was dark and we could see the stars. I spent the whole time listening to her breathing. It seemed like the farther we went, the more steady it became.

I finally stopped the car when I realized we were pretty high up a mountain. To my left was an old drive-in movie place. It was either closed for the night or abandoned because nobody was there. I wanted to talk to Chloe. I needed to. The roads on the mountain were empty at that time of night. I pulled over and got out of the car, hearing her follow me. I didn't feel the need to look back because I knew she was there, close. It was almost as if I could feel it. I walked to the big movie screen and went around it, before sitting down cross-legged on the soft grass. She joined me at my side. From where we were we could see a lot: the highway, permanently illuminated by passing headlights, the patchy skyline of a distant town, and what looked like an endless expanse of dense woods.

I focused on her breathing again. It wasn't steady like before. I looked at her. She was coming unhinged. I could see her composure dwindling.

"Is this far enough?" I asked her calmly. Her breathing was becoming shaky.

She looked at me, wearing the same expression as she had when I first saw her at the house, "I don't think I'll ever get far enough away from those people." I took notice of the way she referred to her parents, in such spite. I understood it, obviously.

Our eyes were locked and it was hard to break that contact, but eventually she turned her gaze back to the skyline. I did the same as I tried to think of a good response, "I'm glad that you came back." Whenever I remembered her departure too vividly it brought tears to my eyes.

There was a dragging pause, "So am I." She sighed, shuffling where she sat, "It wasn't any better where we went. It was worse. People were mean to me there. Really mean. Not just my parents. I didn't have anyone."

I almost immediately told her that now she had me, but I didn't for some reason. I don't know why. I was starting to have feelings of nervousness similar to the ones I had during Sophomore year, back when I first met her. Except these ones were worse because they were accompanied by the new fact that I had deep, _deep_ feelings for her, "Well..." I hesitated, "..I'm glad you're okay."

She chuckled bitterly at what I had said, "Okay? I'm _not_ okay. I'm so lonely it hurts. I can feel my heart shriveling up in my chest most of the time." How those words were spoken, with such utter hopelessness, it almost made _me_ start to cry. I opened my mouth to respond, or to comfort her, anything, but she kept talking and I let her, "I want a real friendship with someone I can trust with all my secrets and all my problems..." She exhaled shakily and her lip was starting to quiver, making my concern start to overwhelm me, "...I always feel like I'm waiting for something... for my parents to stop yelling at me, hitting me... for someone else in my family to get me away from them... for someone to notice and for someone to care-"

I had to stop her, "-Chloe." Her rambling ceased and she looked at me. I turned my body to face her, to show her I was really listening, "You don't have to wait for anything anymore. I've noticed. And I care. I care so much. I promise you," I reached forward, gently grasping one of her abnormally cold hands, "I'm not going to let them hurt you ever again." I felt my eyes unintentionally glancing up and down her concealed arms. I remembered finding out about what she did to herself. We hadn't spoken of it or even mentioned it since that day, almost a year ago. I had never brought it up, for fear of her reaction, for fear of seeing her upset. I never wanted to see her upset. But I was worried about her. I knew she needed help. But I didn't know if she wanted it.

Chloe was starting to tear up. What I said had really gotten to her. I sat there and watched as her shoulders started to shake, as her blue eyes glistened, and as she tightly grasped both of my hands. She tried desperately to keep it together.

"You don't need to keep all this in, Chloe." I gently ran my thumbs across the backs of her hands. The fact that she was holding my hands was enough to make me almost lightheaded.

She suddenly just broke down. I had never seen anything like it before: the way something behind her eyes snapped, the way her entire body started to shudder so violently I was worried she would fall over, and the way she abruptly looked so vulnerable and weak. She started to steadily sob, and she moved forward to hug me tightly. I just held her against me while she cried and shook and tried to stammer out parts of words.

"It's okay... you don't have to talk about it." I told her in as nice of a tone as I could manage.

She let out another hysteric sob, a sound so full of pain and hopelessness it's impossible to properly describe, before she managed out a few coherent words, "I missed you." That meant the absolute world to me.

"I missed you too." That was an understatement. I missed her more than I had ever missed anything in my entire life. I had wanted her to be back every day, I dreamt about her almost every night, I cried over her repeatedly and my life seemed to be so empty without her in it. But I didn't say that.

She kept crying. For hours. It was a Friday so it didn't really matter how long we stayed there. Eventually she fell asleep. I managed to bring her back to my car, and I drove her back to my place, at probably 4 AM. Dad was asleep. I brought her to my room and tucked her into my bed, sleeping on the ground myself. I didn't sleep with her, for some reason. I wasn't sure what that reason was. I couldn't sleep, though. All I could think of was her.

And how I felt.

And the obvious fact that it was getting much stronger with every passing second she was around.

My chest hurt and my heart felt empty.

I cried into my pillow until I passed out.


	8. 11:11

I kept her at my house. Her opinion on going to the police about her parents' abuse hadn't changed. She was dead set on never telling the authorities, and I really didn't understand why but I didn't ask either. We were spending practically all of our time together. And we were getting closer. I really couldn't tell how that made me feel.

On one hand, yeah, I was getting closer to her like I had always wanted to. But on another hand, I was being constantly reminded of the fact she didn't want anything more than the friendship we had. I understood that she didn't feel the same way I did, but that didn't make it hurt any less. Being around her was agonizing most of the time but I couldn't be away from her either, without feeling like something was missing.

There was also the fact that the two of us had yet to speak about her self-harming tendencies,_ ever_. I hadn't even seen her bare arms since the first time, and that was what felt like forever ago. For all I knew, she had stopped doing it, or it had gotten worse. I kept my eye on her as much as I possibly could but I knew that there were enough opportunities to hurt herself if she really wanted to. For some reason I felt completely unable to bring up the topic in conversation. If I ever tried - and I did, a few times - the words got caught in my throat.

It seemed like every time I thought my feelings for her wouldn't get any stronger, they just needed to prove me wrong. Every day I could feel them, in the pit of my stomach, consuming my entire body as soon as I saw her. Honestly, I felt like it was slowly killing me from the inside out. Sometimes it was really hard to fake normalcy when I was around her, because it was like I was dying internally.

I couldn't sleep, practically ever. So every night, at 11:11, I would look at the clock and I would make the same wish. That Chloe would feel the same way I did. I don't know exactly how many times I made that wish, but enough times for me to even start thinking it was pitiful. I couldn't stop, though. For some reason I still had this weird little hope in the back of my head that made me think I had a chance.

Chloe would have nightmares sometimes. It made it hard for her to sleep after she woke up from them. When she did, she would knock on my door and ask to sleep next to me. Usually that helped, but sometimes it didn't, and we just stayed awake for hours talking to one another. I never asked what the nightmares were about, but I could make a pretty good guess that they involved her parents.

Even though those days sort of got clumped together in my memories and I couldn't really tell them apart, one night stood out.

I had my face slammed into my pillow in an attempt to force the image of her that was printed on my eyelids away, and to keep the sound of her laughter out of my head. It wasn't working. It never worked. If I followed the usual nightly routine, I would either hold back tears or cry until roughly 11:09 (stupid, I know, but I was a mess), then I would wait until 11:11 when I would make my wish.

I was jolted to awareness by a rather hesitant sounding knock on my door. I knew who that was. Part of me didn't want to see her, because I knew it would most likely just hurt me in the end and I already felt like I was dying. But of course, as always, I wanted to see her. To be near her. To talk to her, to comfort her, to hug her, to hold her hand, anything if it involved interacting with her in any way. I sat up, rubbing at my eye with a clenched fist. She opened the door on her own like she usually did, and she looked at me. I could tell she had a nightmare. She always had the same glint to her eyes that managed to make her entire face look empty. I gestured to the side of the bed at my left. She walked forward and sat there.

"I'm sorry..." She muttered under her breath. Sometimes she would say things like that after she came in here, late at night like this. Other times she wouldn't say anything.

I rested my hand on top of hers, noticing how tense she was, "It's fine Chloe. You never need to apologize."

She exhaled shakily, nodding a bit. After a minute or so, I got back under the covers, more to the right side of the bed to leave her room. She did the same, her body facing mine. I noticed that when she did that, she usually wanted to talk. If she faced away, she didn't. I faced her too. We stared at one another, having one of our seemingly impossible to break eye locks.

"Beca?" Her voice was weak. I raised an eyebrow at her, "Do you ever wish that I wasn't staying here?"

I responded immediately, "No. Never."

She looked away from me, "Are you sure? I would have gotten fed up with me by now if I were you."

"Chloe I know I won't get 'fed up' with you."

"What if you get sick of me?"

"I won't." She didn't understand just how true that was. I didn't think I could ever get sick of her. I realized that I was completely and utterly infatuated with her, if not obsessed. But I wouldn't tell her that. I didn't think that I ever would.

She locked eyes with me again and there was something different there, something I had never seen on her before. It caught my attention and I was about to question, but I didn't when I felt her hand find mine beneath the blankets. She slowly intertwined our fingers together, all the while not looking from me once. Whenever we were like this, in bed together, I paid incredibly close attention to how close we were to one another. I did that then. We were closer than we ever had been, I think.

"Beca... I never really..." She paused for a moment, searching for words, "...I never actually thanked you. For everything you've done for me, and everything you're still doing... I really appreciate it - uh, _you_. Nobody has ever done anything like this for me before. I wish I could make it up to you somehow. Really." She squeezed my hand slightly on the last word.

"Someone should have helped you a long time ago. I'm sorry I didn't talk to you sooner." I meant that.

She smiled at me, and it made my chest feel lighter but my heart hurt at the same time, "Remember when we first officially met, and I said I asked Aubrey about you? Well that wasn't true. I asked about you the first time I saw you, September 6th, on a Thursday, in Freshman year. Something about you was different. Better. It took me an entire year to manage to talk to you. Could you tell, on that day, how nervous I was? Because I was absolutely terrified."

I didn't know what to say. That meant so much to me. It was such a genuine confession, spoken with so much sincerity, and more than anything it made me want to start crying. I didn't really know why but I could feel my eyes getting glossy. I hoped she didn't notice.

Remembering then that she had asked me a question, I answered it, putting all of my effort into keeping my voice steady and my eyes dry, "No, you didn't seem nervous at all. I was nervous though. Was it obvious?"

She was still smiling. It was nice to see. Sometimes she would go days without smiling, "No..." I tensed up slightly when the smile slid from her face out of nowhere, and her brow furrowed, "...are you okay? You look upset, did I say something or-"

"-no, no. I'm fine." I was worried I had cut her off too quickly. I just wasn't sure what I would do if she started to comfort me. I might say something I would regret. I was tired and upset, heartbroken laying right next to my heartbreaker. That was just begging for trouble.

"Beca I've known you long enough to tell when you're lying, but why are you now? You know you can talk to me right?" I nodded slightly, desperately wanting to see her smile again, "Then what's wrong? You can tell me."

_No, I can't actually._ I thought to myself grudgingly. She couldn't know. It would ruin things, it wasn't worth it. I just stared at her. What was I supposed to do? I couldn't tell her the truth but I couldn't lie. I would have to somehow divert the topic.

"I don't want to talk about it."

She frowned at me, "Okay... but if you ever do, I'm here." She scooted closer to me, smiling slightly again, "I'm always here."

I didn't know what to say. I felt my composure dwindling down to nothing, but I couldn't bring my eyes from her, even though mine were steadily filling with tears. She was inches from me. I could feel my heartbeat becoming painful and my chest constricting. I felt so much for her. And she didn't feel anything for me. I was starting to cry. I had no say in the matter. I shut my eyes tightly as my body started to shake. I tugged my hand from her grasp so that I could conceal my face with both of them. As I stared to sob, I wasn't surprised when her arms wrapped around me. I just let her hug me while I cried. It probably wasn't very good for me to have the very source of my sadness trying to cheer me up. But she wasn't just the source of my sadness, she was the source of my happiness. It didn't make any sense and I was aware of that, but it was the truth.

I cried for a while, the entire time trying desperately to stop. It embarrassed me. She just held me, patiently, never saying a word. This was the first time I ever cried in front of her. After a pretty long time though, I managed to calm myself down. So I just laid there, still in her arms, wondering if she had fallen asleep or not. It was then that I remembered something. It was enough to make me turn around immediately, so that I could see my clock. I hadn't missed it. 11:10. I sighed in relief, surprised I had noticed it just on time. Chloe shuffled around a bit at my sudden movement. I felt her wrap her arms around my stomach instead. I could feel her breath on the back of my neck and it made me tense up.

"What're you doing..?" She asked in a sleepy, absolutely adorable slur.

"Checking the time..."

I felt her head move up a little, to look at the clock no doubt, before moving back to it's original position, "It's 11:11. You makin a wish?" I hesitated for a second before slowly nodding, not surprised when she asked, "What for?"

I responded without thinking, "You." Unfortunately I had realized what I had said too late. She was half-asleep though, right? She wouldn't understand, right? Or she wouldn't remember tomorrow, right? Either way I held my breath, suddenly terrified.

She let a small, quiet chuckle that made my neck vibrate, "That's sweet..." She must not have really gotten my meaning, or she was too tired to.

I tried to fall asleep. But with her arms wrapped around me, her breath on my skin, and her body pressed against mine, there was no way I was ever going to. I swear, every second that passed, every moment she was close to me, my feeling got stronger.

By the end of the night it was like they were going to eat me alive.


	9. Indecision

I started to notice that Chloe seemed more upset than she usually did. She would go days and days, sometimes weeks without showing any type of positive emotion. Sometimes she wouldn't respond to me when I was talking to her, or she wouldn't speak at all. It was worrying me, to say the least. I was so terrified that she was still hurting herself, and her behavior at that time wasn't easing my nerves.

There's one night I won't ever be able to forget, even if I tried.

This time the knock on my door was really slow. Abnormally slow. And erratic. That on its own worried me, and when Chloe didn't open the door on her own like she usually did, I already felt myself on the verge of a panic attack. I got out of my bed easily, not having been asleep anyways, and headed towards my door. I opened it and Chloe stood there. She looked terrible, emotionally, not physically. I think it was impossible for her to look terrible physically. Her mouth was agape, her lip quivering like she wanted to say something but she didn't, and tears were threatening to burst from her eyes. She kept looking from her left to right, it seemed like she was about to run at any second.

"Chloe, what's wrong?" I reached forward and gently grabbed her hand, pulling her into my room and closing the door behind her. Now it'd be a bit harder for her to run away, like it still looked like she wanted to. She started shaking her head back and forth and stammering out things that didn't make sense. Her eye were glued to my door.

"I-I know I shouldn't do it..." She was starting to cry, "...but I f-feel like I need to, they say I need to, in my nightmares..." She ran her fingers through her hair, trying desperately to keep it together, even when tears were streaming down her cheeks.

"What? Who says you need to do what?" She wasn't making any sense, but I wanted more than anything to hug her and to help her.

She let out a shaky sob, and I held her hand again, "My p-parents, they call me things like stupid and... and worthless, and t-they say that I should..." Her eyes continued to flit to the door to my bedroom, more and more frequently each time. I abruptly understood everything she had been saying when she looked to her left arm. It made me freeze.

"No Chloe," I spoke up frantically, nearly incoherent on account of my almost panic, "You should never, ever do that. You never should have. You don't have to."

She was shaking violently, and her eyes hadn't moved from her arm, "...but I w-want to, I deserve it-"

"-No. Don't say that. Don't ever say that. Please Chloe." I found myself looking at her arm too.

I watched, practically paralyzed as she moved her right hand to it. It stayed there, just resting from what I could tell. I could also tell that she wanted to squeeze there, so that she could cause herself pain. She didn't though. Thank God. She was starting to steadily sob. I grasped the end of her sleeve cautiously, pulling it up at a very slow rate. I needed to see how bad it was. I almost started crying when I did. The cuts were serious. They were everywhere and they were deep. I grabbed her right hand to move it away from her arm and I pulled the sleeve down. And I hugged her. Tightly. As tightly as I could without hurting her. She hugged me back.

"You never need to hurt yourself. Ever. You don't deserve it. You're worth so much, and you shouldn't listen to what your nightmares tell you to do."

"This is just what I'm supposed to do... this is what I've always done for years... I'm sorry I just... I don't have any other options..." She was speaking so quietly I almost didn't understand her.

"You have options now. You aren't at home and you're safe here. You have me. And it makes me _so_ sad when I see you upset in any way. And... when you do things like this it makes me feel so powerless. I want to help you. Please let me help you, I will do _any_thing if it helps you in _any_ way."

She started to cry harder, more hysterically, "There's nothing you can do, Beca. I'm too far gone..." That absolutely broke my heart.

"No you're not, I promise you. Please believe tha-"

"-I want to _die_." She let me go and squirmed from my grasp. I was flabbergasted, not believing what she had said. She was still quaking uncontrollably, and I watched her start frantically pacing the floor, grasping at her left arm again.

"Chloe... I..." Imagining her not with me, not living, not breathing - it almost made me pass out. I wanted to help her. But I didn't know how. She was unstable, "...you can't die. You're going to get better."

She sobbed into her hand, "I can't get better it's pointless to even try, I should just go kill myself now..." Her eyes moved to my bedroom door again. She was going to trying and leave. And do something. Bad.

She started to head towards it but I knew I had to stop her. I moved and stood in her way. That was enough to make her stand still. I gently grabbed her hands in an attempt to calm her down but she immediately tugged them from me. She was hyperventilating.

"What are you doing?" I asked her, trying to keep my voice as steady as possible.

"Let me out. Let me go, let me get a razor and cut so deep I bleed out." She had locked eyes with me. She was still crying hysterically, "Please. I can't do this anymore. It's too much."

I felt like I was going into shock. She wanted to die. She wanted to kill herself. What was I supposed to do? "Please Chloe, don't. You have so much to live for now. You aren't near your parents, you're safe. And I..." I stopped myself, almost confessing my feelings for her automatically without realizing it, "...I need you Chloe. I really, really need you."

She stopped still for a few seconds, looking straight into my eyes, "I've never heard you say that before."

"I do need you. I-It's like I need you more than I need to breathe." I felt my feelings getting nearly hard to control, hard to restrain when she looked so helpless, insecure and weak.

"Beca I..." Her body stopped shaking. She kept looking from her arm back to me, shaking her head back and forth, tears still silently rolling down her cheeks and dripping off her jaw, "...I-I need you too. You're the reason that I'm even still alive. If you hadn't taken me away from my parents, I would have already downed a bottle of pills."

I felt myself shed a single tear. She took a step closer to me and it made me tense up, "It... _terrifies_ me to even hear you say that." I blinked rapidly, trying to maintain my composure, "I can't lose you. I don't think I could live without you, I would lose my mind."

She exhaled shakily, "Well what did you do after I moved away?"

I hesitated for a moment. Should I actually tell her just how much it crushed me? She was threatening to kill herself and I would do anything to make her realize she shouldn't. Taking a deep breath, I let out everything, "I almost cried whenever I saw someone with blue eyes. I couldn't focus on anything. I got bad grades. I couldn't sleep, and if I did, I dreamt about you. I thought about you every day, all the time. When you came back I almost wouldn't let myself believe it..." I trailed off, staring dead at her, "I don't know what I would do if I lost you again, Chloe. I think I might die."

Chloe spoke up quickly, frantically, "Don't say that."

I raised an eyebrow at her, "How do you think I feel, with everything you're saying?" We were both nearly sobbing but were trying to keep it together. Our voices were shaky and they broke on every other word. The sadness and desperation we both felt was tangible.

"I-I'm sorry..." She abruptly lost it and burst into tears, "...I'm just tired of feeling so awful, constantly."

I hugged her tightly and we held onto each other like lifelines, "Chloe, you're not awful. I'll do anything to make you feel better. I'm glad you came to me instead of... doing it... I wouldn't be able to live anymore, knowing that I could have done more to help you."

"Beca, no. It wouldn't have been your fault."

"Yes it would have."

"It would have been mine, it was my choice."

"And I just stood by in the other room. And I didn't help enough."

"Stop it. You've helped me more than you could ever know." She let me go all of the sudden, but didn't pull too far away. I was stiff as a board, noticing how close we were, my feelings becoming absolutely overwhelming. I hadn't realized I was crying, but she had. I exhaled shakily when she gently brushed her thumbs across my cheeks, wiping the tears away, and she gave me a weak smile, "Thank you. Really. I-I'm sorry that I keep worrying you..." She sighed, and the feeling of her breath on my lips was driving me _crazy,_ "I'm trying. I really am."

Our eye contact wasn't breaking. It was like it was impossible. It was taking so much effort on my part not to close the space between us. But I forced myself not to. She didn't want that. Only I did. So _much__,_ "I know you are. And I'm proud of you."

We stood there for a while longer, not moving, not looking away from one another. I was on the verge of breaking down.

But eventually, she let out a long exhale before moving her hands from my face. That relieved me and pained me. She walked toward my bed and sat down on it. I joined her.

"Can I sleep in here?" I didn't understand why she was asking me that, but I just nodded.

When we went to sleep that night, I woke up once. Her face was inches, if not centimeters from mine. It made me start to cry, my feelings being so unbelievably strong but not mutual. I turned from her and tried to muffle my sobs with my hand, but I guess it didn't work very well. After a few minutes I felt her wrapping her arms around my stomach. She didn't say a word. I kept crying for hours. I wasn't sure when I fell asleep. Or if I did at all.


	10. Stargazers

Doing the same thing every day - only going to school and staying in my house all the time - wasn't helping Chloe and I knew that. I wanted to get her mind off of all of the negative things that had been happening, I wanted to pull her out of that rut and get her out of the downward spiral she seemed so used to being in. I wasn't in the best mood either, all of the things regarding Chloe were heavy topics and it was like they weighed me down as I went about my day. It's hard to describe.

So, any day that we had enough time free, we would get in my car and I would drive somewhere, anywhere. She liked it. I was starting to notice more and more during these times that underneath all of the trauma and pain, she was spontaneous, adventurous and outgoing. I loved seeing her happy. It was the best thing in the world, especially when I knew that I was the one that had made her smile, or laugh, or even cause just a spark of contentment to flash behind her eyes for the briefest of moments. I tried so hard to keep her in a good mood, but it didn't work sometimes.

I tried to switch things up and keep things interesting, to keep her distracted from her depression and self-harming urges. I would take her out to eat at weird, cute little diners that I managed to find, I took her to see any movie she wanted, I took her to a few concerts, and I would drive as far as she wanted to go when we were in the car, I would honestly do anything she asked me to without slight hesitation. It was like my feelings for her wouldn't allow me to do anything different.

One day, a Saturday, I think, we got in the car like we often did and I drove onto the highway. Instead of going off in some random direction we had never gone before, I went a familiar route. And I pulled over on the side of the road - next to an old, empty drive-in-movie place. We didn't even need to say anything to one another. I noticed that we didn't exchange words about little things like some people might, we just understood one another without them. It was nice. Special.

We sat down in the same spot we had weeks and weeks before, when she had come back here after moving. It was nighttime then, we had driven for a while. After not saying anything for a good ten minutes or so, I noticed Chloe laying on her back to stare up at the stars. I joined her.

At times like this, I found it so ridiculously hard not to confess how I felt about her, even though I knew how badly it would turn out. Something inside of me just viewed it as some kind of opportunity. Instead though, I would unintentionally say things that hinted at how I felt, only noticing after the fact that it had been totally stupid and that I was an idiot. It happened a lot.

I had never stargazed with anyone before. I didn't think people actually did this, I thought that it was something that only happened in rom-coms. But there I was, laying with Chloe on this nearly unreal soft grass, the only sounds being the very distant humming of car engines. I tilted my head to have my eyes on her instead of the stars. She was much more pretty than they were. She looked so enthralled and content. The way that the starlight illuminated her face made her look even more gorgeous when I thought that was impossible.

I watched as she sighed lightly before speaking quietly, "The view is beautiful." It was almost like she was talking to herself.

"You're beautiful." I told her, unable to stop staring. I cursed myself mentally, wondering if that was weird. I knew it was stupid, but did she think anything of it?

She let out a soft chuckle, "You know, I always have this fear that one day you're gonna realize I'm not as great as you seem to think." Her words were faint but I caught every one of them.

"That's never going to happen. You don't have to worry." I tried to reassure her. It wasn't really working.

"You're not going to want me around forever, Beca." She had a smile on her face but she wasn't happy. That much was obvious.

I moved my hand to hers and intertwined our fingers together. She was cold, "How can you not see your own beauty?" It genuinely confused me. I didn't care if this might make her have suspicions about my feelings for her, I wanted to know the answer. Surely other people had told her the same thing. Then again... maybe not. She hadn't seemed to have much support throughout her life. A pang of sadness hit my heart and it physically hurt for a few seconds. I felt so bad for her.

"Because there isn't any." She uttered, still smiling for some reason. The dimness of the moonlight made it too hard to tell if her eyes were glossy, "There never has been."

I tightened my grip on her hand, her words sobering to hear, "One day, you'll have to stop hating yourself." I told her under my breath. I still couldn't look away from her, from her profile, from her smile I now interpreted as a bitter one.

"I don't know anything else."

I scooted closer to her instinctively, "Chloe, I think you're beautiful. And I wouldn't lie to you."

"You sure?" She moved her hand from mine suddenly and it made me tense, "I'm pretty sure that you just don't want me to kill myself. And that you'll say just about anything to keep me from doing it." She sat up.

I did the same, "...Do you still want to?" She didn't answer. Just fiddled with her fingers, staring down at the highway with an odd interest, "...Chloe?" I needed to her her say no. If her response was anything besides that, I didn't know what I would do. I just wanted to know she was safe. Stable. Better.

"I don't know. I honestly don't know, okay?" She sounded a little aggravated. Not really at me, more at herself. I felt bad for her, but also so protective. She probably didn't want to know just how concerned I was. It would make her feel guilty.

I sighed heavily, shakily, "Chloe, I want you here, with me. Remember what I said? I don't think I'll be able to live without you. You're such a huge part of my life now, you..." I trailed off for a second or two, contemplating on whether or not I should say what I planned. When I saw her hands clench into white-knuckles fists, and her head tilting lower down, I forced the words out, "...you are my happiness. Really."

She shut her eyes tightly for a few dragging moments, "I wish you hadn't said that..." She smiled bitterly again, "... because, what if I'm not around anymore? What'll you do?" Her voice broke on the last word.

"I wouldn't know what to do. I would probably..." I stared at her intensely, I just wanted her to look back at me. If I said what I anticipated, it may get her attention, "...I would probably kill myself, Chloe."

She turned immediately, eyes locked with mine, her expression very different than it had been seconds before. She scooted closer to me, "Beca you can't."

"You can't either."

"I..." She sighed, but she reached forward and gently grasped my hands, her grip loose. Now she wasn't looking at my eyes at all. I could tell that she felt guilty. I wasn't sure if she should or not.

"Chloe, listen to me." She seemed very conflicted. She sighed again, releasing my hands, staring at the grass, "Chloe." I could tell she was much more immersed in her own thoughts than in what I was saying. I wanted her to pay attention. I wanted her to actually keep her eyes on me. After sitting there for a few more moments, I was losing my patience and I was getting upset. Finally, I reached forward and I placed my hand on her ridiculously soft cheek, turning her head to me gently. Our gazes met. So many emotions were shown behind hers, "Please just... remember the next time you want to... leave me... just think of how much I would hurt. Please."

She stammered out some things, the beginnings to parts of words, before she frowned and whispered something almost inaudible, "I don't want to hurt you."

I paused for a second, "Well... Chloe you sort of are. I feel like I'm not helping you. It's a really awful feeling."

I noticed her eyes flit to my hand that still rested on her cheek. I wondered if it was making her uncomfortable so I started to pull away but she reached up, keeping it there by pressing her own against it, "Beca I'm sorry, alright..? I just... I'm tired of being so goddamn sad all the time. I don't want to wake up in the morning. I want to sleep forever."

I almost told her how I felt. Just to possibly make her happy. But I kept it in. I felt like I was going to explode most of the time. Not fun. Telling her would be bad though. It would cause a lot of problems, "Please stay alive for me. Please. You don't understand how much I need you." I sounded so desperate and sincere.

Chloe stared at me. Her breathing was patchy and uneven. I noticed her moving her face closer to mine. Just a little, it was barely noticeable. But I picked up on it immediately. Why had she done that? I kept my eyes on her for a few seconds longer. But she didn't say anything else. We just looked at one another.

She sighed lightly, briefly, before moving away from me and standing, "Lets just head back to your house, okay? I'm tired." She extended a hand to me and tugged me to my feet.

I sort of felt like we still needed to talk about these topics, no matter how upset it made both of us. But she didn't want to. It was making her feel pressured and nervous. So I left it alone. We got in my car and we went back to my place. This time, though, instead of her at least attempting to go to sleep on my couch, she followed me straight into my room and got into my bed. I didn't say anything about it.

At some point during the night she moved and pressed herself against me. I was a bit startled, having been half-asleep. But I wrapped my arms around her. It actually helped me get to sleep for once.


	11. Sunshine

One weekend Chloe said she really wanted to watch old movies. I managed to find some that my dad had. They were like _really_ old. Ancient. I was surprised they didn't fall apart when I touched them. He told me I could use them and that he didn't really care but he watched me carry them out of his bedroom and I could tell he was terrified.

I don't remember much about what the movies were actually about but they were from the 20s, 30s and 40s time periods. Some had Marilyn Monroe in them, I recognized her, obviously. Some had an actress named Clara Bow, who Chloe said she had always liked. The movies didn't overly interest me but the way that people talked back then was enough to make me smile. It was so fast and frantic, it was like everyone was in a hurry.

We were sitting on opposite ends of my couch. But then in the middle of what I think was a pretty important scene, the power went out. We didn't have any windows in my living room so I wasn't sure what had happened. Maybe we had blown a fuse or something. I glanced at Chloe and was a little taken aback to see that she was practically against my side. She must have been scooting gradually closer to me throughout the movie. I didn't address it.

We left the room to figure out what had happened. As soon as we did, we could see out of a window that it was pouring buckets of rain. Chloe's face lit up with a huge grin and she immediately ran outside onto my thankfully roofed porch. She sat down there and I joined her. We watched the rain pummel the ground relentlessly, and Chloe didn't stop smiling the entire time.

I hadn't seen her that genuinely happy in months. Her eyes were sparkling. I remembered her telling me so long before that she loved the rain. It seemed rather obvious then. When I wasn't looking at her, I would look at the sky.

"There's so much beauty in the rain." She muttered, sounding seriously awed, like she had never seen it before in her entire life and she had never known it existed.

"It's nice." Her smile was contagious and I found myself grinning at nothing in particular.

She wouldn't look away from the rain. It was like she couldn't, "I read somewhere once... that for lonely people, it's like rain is a chance to be touched."

I paused for a moment, listening closer to what she had said, "Are you lonely?"

I noticed her smile fade for just a moment, and she looked down, sighing lightly, "In... some aspects, yeah." I think she stopped breathing for a few seconds. Her words immediately caught my attention.

"In what aspects?" I didn't want to sound pushy but I _really_ wanted to know. We had never discussed anything like this before.

She hesitated for a while., "You know... like family and whatever." I nodded to myself slightly, not expecting her to say anything else and being a bit startled when she did, "And um... the romantic factor isn't doing great either." You could feel the caution behind her words.

I wanted to make that untrue. I wanted to be her life's romantic factor. I wanted that so badly I nearly said it aloud. But I obviously didn't. I was stupid but not that stupid. I kept my big fat mouth shut by nothing short of a miracle. Since I didn't respond she eventually kept talking.

"I uh... I like the idea that someone, somewhere is made for you. But sometimes I feel like that's too far-fetched..." She sighed again, quietly, "...I... want to be someone's idea of perfect. I want to be that person someone gets butterflies from. I want someone to not be able to stop thinking about me. I just... I want someone to think about me in that way, ya know?"

She had just unknowingly described the way I felt about her down to the last detail. She was so unaware. Should I tell her? She seemed so upset and distraught, was it a bad time? Would it ever be a good time? I got a nearly unbearable pain in my chest at the thought she might never know. I might never get the guts. Or hell, maybe it would go away. I almost laughed aloud at myself. That was never going to happen.

I still didn't respond to her, worrying too much about what I might say when this topic was being discussed. Coupled with the fact that I couldn't bring myself to look at her must have caused some concerns, because she let out a single nervous chuckle, shaking her head back and forth and looking down toward her feet, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have started talking about this. It just gets me in a bad mood..." She sniffled, and I wondered if she was about to cry but I still couldn't bring my eyes to her, "...I know it's not gonna happen. Nobody's ever gonna feel that way about me."

"Chloe-" I spoke up so sternly and so fast it caught me off guard. I nearly blurted out all of my feelings in one big jumble without realizing it because I was so conflicted hearing what she said. She looked at me, her expression showing so many things it was too hard to determine what they were. We locked eyes. And I couldn't say anything else. She just stared at me. And I stared at her.

"...yeah? What is it Beca?" Her tone was... expecting? She wanted a very specific response but I didn't know what it was.

"...I just... you shouldn't..." I looked at her hand. It had previously been resting in her lap, but now it was placed next to her, closer to me. I wanted to hold it. But I felt like that would unintentionally hint at things, given what the current topic of conversation was, "...don't say stuff like that. With these sorts of things you can't ever be sure, so you should just stay pretty positive about it. I mean for all you know you could have like a million secret admirers that are just too nervous to talk to you."

She suddenly moved her hand on top of mine before grasping it tightly. I tensed up but I couldn't look away from her, "Well I wish they'd just tell me already. Sometimes you need someone to tell you you aren't as terrible as you think you are."

I didn't hesitate in answering her, "You aren't as terrible as you think you are." She opened her mouth to respond but I wouldn't let her get a word in, "You aren't terrible at all. You're..." I didn't know how to describe her without letting her know about my feelings, "...you're great, alright? You're really really great." I squeezed her fingers very slightly. I loved holding her hand.

She blushed. She actually blushed. This situation was odd. She was acting different than she normally did. I wasn't sure how to interpret that. I also couldn't tell if her mood was better or worse. Neither of us said anything for a while. But then she suddenly withdrew her hand from mine and sighed to herself. A roll of thunder suddenly shook the ground we were on. Chloe became stiff as a statue for a few lingering seconds, her eyes trained on the rain again, not on me.

I couldn't help but keep thinking to myself,_ If only you knew. Things would be so much easier. Or maybe not?_ Her sudden movements away from me were unsettling and went unexplained. I was worried. Had I made her uncomfortable? I desperately hoped that I hadn't.

"We um," I didn't know what to say. All of my focus was being put into not letting my near panic seep into my surprisingly firm voice, "We don't have to talk about this anymore..." A rather impressive bolt of lightning lit up the dark, cloudy sky for a moment, "...do you like when it storms like this?" She had only told me she liked the rain. Not storms.

She nodded, that on its own being a sufficient response though she added words, "They remind me that even the sky isn't totally perfect. Sure, it's pretty, but sometimes it has to scream and cry just like everyone else." At her words she looked up at it, "The sky has its dark moments, but after a while, they pass."

I looked at her, "Yours will too."

I was caught off guard when she matched my gaze, the faintest of smiles coming to her face, "Maybe they already have..." She looked down for a second before glancing back at me, seeming nervous, "Storms only end when some sunlight shines through the clouds."

I smirked at her, successfully feigning my composure, "Are you calling me your sunshine?" She shook her head back and forth with an eyeroll, blushing a bit. Her face became even more red when I added, "Don't go getting all Johnny Cash on me." What she had said actually meant the world to me. But I just tried to add in some mild humor. I felt like it was needed.

"Whatever," She mumbled, jostling me a bit with her elbow, "Don't act like I'm the only one that gets sappy sometimes, you have your moments too."

"Oh you don't have to tell me, I know."

"But, Beca..." Her voice adopted a more serious tone, and I listened intently to her, "...really, I can't thank you enough for everything you've done for me. I... I feel like I shouldn't get into it right now because I'll just start rambling, but... yeah." She sighed a little.

"You don't need to thank me Chloe. I'm more than happy to help." She put her hand on mine again but she didn't look at me. We just sat there without saying a word.

We stayed in that same spot until the rain died down to a drizzle, and the sun set. We then retreated back inside, and resumed the movie, since the power came back on. This time, instead of sitting on the other end of the couch, she snuggled against my side with her head on my shoulder.

I couldn't tell if I should be tense, or ecstatic.

So I was both.


	12. Cartwheels

I was determined to keep her happy. All of my thoughts were either directly about her, or about ways to make her smile. I remembered what she had told me a long long time before: she had done acrobatics for years but she had to stop when she moved here. It's a small town with too large of a population, there are no spaces big enough for a studio or whatever.

At the start of spring break, I planned a small road trip without telling her about it. So one day, I got Chloe into my car and drove outside town for a really long time, over two hours probably. I got on a really weird rural dirt road. I also was being a total brat and wasn't answering any of Chloe's frequent questions. She pouted for most of the ride, when she wasn't examining her surroundings in an attempt to determine our destination. As the sun was almost setting, we finally got where I wanted. I stopped the car and parked on the side of what seemed to be a totally unused road. I got out, Chloe following me, her curiosity tangible. I gently grabbed her hand and I led her up a grassy hill.

I knew what was here, I had seen it before when I was younger and when my parents were still together. During the summer we had gone on a big road trip together once, and dad had brought us here. I remembered that day because it was the first time I saw my mom and dad get into a real argument, but I don't remember what it was about.

It was an enormous field. It was mostly empty except for a few trees scattered here and there. She didn't understand why I had brought her there at first. I briefly explained it, and she _totally_ freaked out.

I hadn't seen her smile that widely in months and months, not even during that storm. It made me start beaming too. She threw her arms around me tightly, briefly, and looked toward the field with a twinkle to her eyes. She walked forward before doing a series of weird acrobatic things I would never have even dreamed of being able to do in a million years. She got pretty far away before stopping and turning around to face me. I headed towards her while she started doing some sort of stretch with her arms, but when I stood in front of her she stopped and started talking, her voice sounding calm, elated, relaxed.

"Beca I can't thank you enough... I didn't know but this is just what I needed, seriously." She let out a deep breath, still grinning ear-to-ear, "When I lived in the city and my parents were still... you know... acro was the only thing that kept me grounded. I met my friends there, I could get away from home there, and I actually felt safe there." Her eyes got distant, just like they had the first time she told me about it.

"Don't mention it," I smiled at her, "It's just great to see you happy."

It almost looked like she was going to cry from joy. She hugged me again, her nose burying into my neck, and it made my entire body feel significantly lighter, like I would have floated up into the air if she wasn't there. She held onto me for a good few seconds before letting me go a little too frantically. It was odd. She didn't look at me for a while, and her smile had faded. I raised an eyebrow, but then she returned to her previous peppy mood out of nowhere. What was that about?

"I didn't know you could do all those cartwheels and flips and stuff." I was slightly trying to change the topic. I wasn't sure why.

She seemed willing to comply though, "This stuff is basic, I learned how to do the flips when I was eightish and I learned how to do a cartwheel when I was like, seven." She started to back away a bit, slowly, trying to be inconspicuous for some reason. I could tell, "Do you know how to do them?"

"What, cartwheels? Oh, no no."

"What? Why not?" She smiled again.

I shrugged slightly, "I didn't really have any friends when I was little, I dunno, I just never got around to learning how to do it." I told her.

"Well, you should know. I can teach you right now, come on, it'll be fun." She still smiled at me and she stopped trying to sneakily move away.

I wasn't sure, I was a little nervous. I had never ever ever been good at stuff like this, at anything regarding physical exercise for that matter, "Uh I don't know..."

Chloe smiled wider, her blindingly white teeth just adding to how beautiful she looked, especially when she was that happy, "Come on, I've done it a million times before," She grabbed my hand, and I noticed she was a little more tense than usual but I didn't understand why. Clearly she wasn't taking no for an answer though.

"Fine," I gave in, knowing it would be pointless to try and protest anymore. She tugged me a bit closer to the center of the field. The sun was dipping behind some clouds, the sky an amazing shade of orange. The sun's rays were shining through her hair that was being blown about in the light breeze. I could see her tan skin practically glowing. My feelings were, again, consuming me and nearly making me burst into tears or pass out on the spot. She didn't seem to notice. Thank God.

"Okay, so," She let me go, standing a bit of a distance from me, "You have to raise your arms up, so that they cover your ears, your shoulders should be facing forward... you're gonna need at least some arm strength or you might just fall on your face." She didn't stop smiling the entire time. I wasn't that into what I was doing but I raised my arms up like she said, and her brow furrowed a bit, "Here, you've got to," She looked to be at a bit of a dismay, not really knowing what to do or how to properly teach this. So instead she walked towards me, "Just let me show you, it's hard to explain."

I felt her hands on her hips as she stood behind me, "Your hips should be facing forward, and in line with your upper body," I felt my breathing start to quicken. She was so close to me. I felt her breath on my neck. Her hands moved to my arms, "I think you're strong enough, you can do this easily." Her lips were practically_ literally_ _touching_ my ear. It took everything I had to keep myself from tensing up and showing Chloe something was wrong. I wanted to cry. Why was she doing this? Did she know how much she was killing me?

Right when I was about to squirm away from her on my own, she let me go. I turned around to look at her, my smile having long-since faded while hers was still prominently plastered on her face. She briefly looked me up and down before asking, "Do you think you can try it?"

I nodded slightly. I just had a sudden urge to get away from her, needing to compose myself. But she followed me, saying, "I'll make sure you don't wipeout too bad, alright?" I stuck my tongue out at her, playfully glaring, trying my absolute hardest to restore some humor and make things seem more normal after what had just occurred with that little mini "lesson". She just laughed at me slightly.

So, I got ready to try to do a cartwheel for the first time in my life, while I was going through inner emotional turmoil, and the cause of it was inches from me. I wasn't surprised when I staggered during my pathetic attempt that I'm not even going to try to describe. I felt Chloe grab my arm and try to prevent me from falling and looking like even more of a moron but all she managed to do was make it so my back hit the ground instead of my face. She also came down with me, both of us managing to laugh. It took me a few seconds to noti_ce how we had landed._

Chloe was on top of me. Directly. Her body was against mine. Our faces were inches from one another. I could feel her breath on my lips. She was staring into my eyes. We both seemed to realize what was going on at the same time, both of us stopping our laughter and losing our smiles simultaneously. My feelings were overwhelming me. Again. I wanted to kiss her. _So_ badly. My eyes flitted to her lips, I couldn't help it, I mean come on. I brought my gaze back to hers. There was something there. Something different. Something magnetic. I knew I needed to get away from her before I did something I would have regretted. But when I saw _her_ look at _my_ lips, I couldn't restrain myself anymore. And I kissed her.

It was the most exhilarating feeling I had ever experienced in my entire life. I felt such abrupt adrenaline. This was what I had wanted to do for months, probably over a year. I couldn't realize what I was doing because I wanted to do it so badly. But something in my mind was screaming at me desperately to stop. I didn't want to. Her lips were so soft. It took me a good few seconds. But I pulled away from her. I felt myself starting to cry. I had ruined everything.

But then she kissed me again. _She_ kissed _me_. I tensed up, my eyes shooting open to see that hers were closed. I couldn't believe it. I wouldn't let myself believe it. I didn't know what to do. Kiss her back? Stop, and question this? I wanted her. More than anything. But I was aware she didn't feel the same way. I wasn't sure what she was doing or why she was doing it.

She abruptly broke the kiss, looking mortified, uncertain, confused. I watched as she got off of me frantically, backing away. I sat up. We stared at each other, both of us breathing heavily. I was the first to look away, embarrassed, blushing violently, still on the verge of tears, about to have a complete emotional breakdown.

"I-I'm so sorry Chloe, I was just-"

"-Don't. That was my fault. It was nothing. Lets just forget that happened, it was..." I was too ashamed to look at her, but I had a feeling she appeared conflicted, "...it was a stupid mistake. It won't happen again."

It _was_ a mistake. And I _did_ regret it. But the rush that gave me, the feelings that came with it, I didn't regret. Not even a little. In fact, more than anything I wanted to kiss her again, despite the potentially negative aftermath. Why had she kissed me? After I broke away? I stared at her again. She wasn't looking at me. She was _so __gorgeous_. Stunning. Irresistable.

Perfect.

And I was completely in love with her.

**Guys haha sorry if I ever accidentally throw in "Noelle" or "Grace" it's just that I'm also writing another thing with main characters similar to Bechloe and I guess I just get them confused lol I'm a mess. But thanks a lot for all of the love this is getting :) I may or may not be a litttttle later with the next update, I have some stuff to do. And I know you're all like "WHAT OMFG I HATE YOU YOU CANT JUST LEAVE IT LIKE THIS AHGGHA FEELS" and I understand that completely. I ain't leavin nothin and imma come back to it, i guarantee there'll be an update sometime this week, I PROMISE. **


	13. Delusional

Even though it seemed like that kiss in the field was going to be brushed off like it was nothing, that was unfortunately far from the case. Things were so tense. The awkwardness was always prominent and always present, no matter how hard we both tried to make things seem normal again.

The previous frequent intervals of extensive eye contact we used to have were now rare, and very very brief. I personally took all of the blame upon myself for what had happened and it hurt so badly. I constantly felt so stupid and selfish. That didn't suppress my feelings though. They just got more clear. I finally realized and acknowledged I was head-over-heels in love with Chloe. It tore me apart though, because we were significantly growing apart, and I felt like it was all my fault.

Chloe barely talked to me at all, and I sort of don't understand how she managed that since we live in the same house. Our lack of communication was unsettling for several reasons, one of which being that she may be hurting herself and I would have no way of knowing. Chloe seemed pretty upset all the time, but that could have just been because of the lingering awkward. Whatever the case was, I was concerned.

One night, I got up for a second to check on Chloe because of a terrible nightmare I had. I just wanted to see her and make sure she was alright, so I could at least try to calm down. But she wasn't on the couch. Feeling myself almost have a goddamn heart attack from my panic, I walked into my living room, thinking maybe she had just gotten up to get a drink of water, or she couldn't sleep or something. Anything. I walked around my entire house, all except my dad's room, but she wasn't anywhere.

I didn't check my bathroom though. I just didn't want to think of what she may be doing in there. I paced nervously outside the closed door for what felt like forever. Should I just go in? Should I knock? It wasn't my dad that was in there, I had heard his snoring through his door. No, Chloe was either in there, or nowhere in the house. I didn't want to believe the latter, so I just waited for her to come out.

But after what felt like forever, she still hadn't. I was biting my lip so hard it was practically drawing blood. I might have worn a rut in the floor from how frantically I paced it, and my palms had deep fingernail indentations in them from my tightly clenched fists.

After a straight hour, I stood and pressed my ear to the wood. It was totally silent. Maybe she wasn't in there after all?

But then I heard a muffled hiss of pain. It made me jump. And throw the door open immediately.

"Chloe are you-" I was about to ask about her well-being, but I stopped still when I actually saw her. She had tugged her sleeve down as I walked in and I didn't have the time to see what was underneath. I had an idea though. I noticed her holding something tightly in her hand, staring at me with wide eyes. I had never seen her look so terrified. She stared dead at me, stiff as a statue, "Um... what're you doing?" I took a step forward, fearing the answer.

"Nothing." The response was immediate. It was weird. Too defensive. Clearly a lie.

"Why are you up this late?" It must have been past 3 AM. My eyes flitted to her concealed arm.

"I was getting a drink. I couldn't really sleep." The look on her face made it seem like even she was aware of how untrue that sounded.

I spoke the next words without realizing what I was saying, "You could have come in room..." Now that I thought about it, Chloe hadn't slept in my bed since we kissed. The awkwardness would surely prevent either of us from being able to relax.

"No I..." It was like she was literally incapable of looking at me, and it made my chest constrict, "...I didn't want to bother you."

"Have I ever not let you in my room if you asked?"

"Beca, can you please just..." She vaguely gestured to the door. I knew she wanted me to leave. I wouldn't.

"No. I'm really worried, Chlo. Clearly something's wrong. Can you please just tell me what it is?" Being more direct with her had worked in the past. I just prayed it did again.

"Nothing's wrong." Again, too defensive. It seemed like she was starting to get angry. I noticed then that we had never really fought before. I was a little worried that was what this would turn into.

I looked towards her still clenched fist, the one the seemed to have something in it, "Then what're you holding?" I roughly knew what must have been there, "A toothbrush?"

Now she looked really started. Maybe she thought I hadn't noticed? "I'm not holding anything." Was all she said, not looking at me in the slightest.

"Open your hand."

"No."

"Why not, if there's nothing there?"

"Beca can you just _back __off__?_" She was raising her voice now. She took a step closer to me to emphasize her point.

"Not until you tell me the truth." I crossed my arms, determined to be stubborn.

"I _am_ telling you the truth!"

"We both know you're not."

"Do you want me to tell you the truth or lie to make you feel better?!"

I paused for a second, my bones feeling like cement, "I want the truth to make me feel better."

"Well it _won't!_" She suddenly moved her fist to the sink and let go of what had been in it.

A razor blade clattered onto the porcelain, tainting the white with the red of what must have been her blood. I felt my jaw drop as I stared at the sharp metal object in absolute horror. I noticed Chloe starting to shake where she stood.

"See?! That's what I was holding! You happy now?!" Her voice shook and her breathing became uneven. It took me a good seconds to manage to look away from the... _tool_ she had dropped.

She looked so unstable. Like her legs could barely support her. Her eyes were actually on me then, and they were glossy, "Of course I'm not happy..." I approached her. I was going to examine the severity of what she had done to herself.

I reached toward her and grasped at the end of her left sleeve, only for Chloe to tug her arm away roughly. When she did, a few drops of blood fell from there and landed on the white tiled floor. I stared at them while she spoke, since I found myself unable to, _"Don't touch me."_ Her tone was acidic. It literally stung to hear it. I just stared at her. She was glaring at me with such spite, "You're _not_ helping!" It looked like her anger faltered for a second. But I don't think she understood just how much that had hurt. Maybe she could see it on my face.

"What did I do wrong?" I asked her. I sounded so desperate. My voice cracked.

She opened her mouth to answer, but stopped short. Before she appeared angry, but now she looked uncertain, "You...you..." She shook her head back and forth, breaking our prolonged eye contact. Suddenly she just became seemingly furious all over again, "You just... I feel... _just let me do this!_ I _need_ to! It helps, and nothing else does!"

"I don't..?" I squeaked out, my pitiful little voice mirroring my utter distress.

"You..." She groaned in frustration, startling me a bit, "Stop it! Stop that!"

"Stop what..?" I was so confused. I was starting to cry.

"_That_! You keep making me feel bad about cutting, but it's a _good_ thing! It helps me! Something helpful can't be bad, right?! Just let me do it!" She sounded delusional. I didn't know what to do.

Finally I exhaled heavily and started just rambling things out, hoping they made sense, "What if I was doing it?! What if I was the one tearing my skin open with a razor blade?! Would you think it was a 'good, helpful' thing then?!" My words caught both of us off guard. She didn't answer of my questions, just staring at me, her angry expression not fading, "Answer me!" I was shouting at her but I barely noticed. I was glad my dad was a heavy sleeper. Her mouth opened very slightly but she still didn't respond, "What if you repeatedly tried to make me happy but it never worked, and I told you that you 'weren't helping'?!" Her expression was gradually changing, but I had gone on a tangent and I couldn't stop, "I feel _useless!_ I feel pointless, awful, I'm terrified for your life, Chlo I feel totally _worthless_ sometimes because-"

_"-You're not worthless!"_ Her anger completely vanished and was replaced by what looked like devastation. Tears started to swell in her eyes and her breathing became incredibly shaky, _"You're amazing okay?!"_ She was trying and failing to compose herself.

"Chloe..." I didn't know what to say or what to do. Should I feel bad? I had made her upset, but maybe that would actually make her stop hurting herself and putting her life in danger.

"...I-I don't... I'm sorry. I didn't know how much this killed you, not until I pictured you doing it..." She ran her fingers through her hair, "Beca, like I said, you're amazing and you should never even think of yourself as being anything less than that."

I knew we had complimented one another before, but this time was different. There was something behind what she was saying. We hadn't said anything like this since the kiss. It was too awkward and hinted at too many things.

"That's what I tell you... but you're still doing this." I looked toward her covered arm. I know she had cut there. How deep, though? How severe? I moved forward, grabbing her sleeve. She started to move away from me again, but I tightened my grip and we locked eyes, "Chloe, let me look. Please." She was really tense, but I realized that it could be from more than the cutting. We were closer together than we had been in weeks. The air was heavy and dense. I tugged the sleeve up to see criss-crossing slices along a fair portion of her forearm. Some were scarily close to being vertical. Even when I knew they were there, actually _seeing_ them, fresh and recent, made it more agonizing. I guess my expression mirrored that.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She let out a small sob, her body starting to shake, "I won't do it again, I won't hurt you anymore, I'm so screwed up Beca."

I grabbed a nearby towel and gently pressed it to her self-inflicted wounds, "Don't cry Chloe... please don't cry. It's alright." She didn't. It got less hysteric, but that was it.

"You do help me, Beca, I don't know why I said that. I just felt..." I looked back up at her when previously I had been staring at her arm. We were pretty close together. I felt drawn to her again, and I moved very slightly closer before stopping myself, "...I felt..." Her voice was getting distant, "...like I..." Her tears were stopping and her breathing was becoming heavy, "...um..." She looked at my lips for a second, just for a second, but I saw it.

"Uh, C-Chlo..." I wanted to kiss her. We were so close together, I knew I should get away from her. It was taking all the willpower I had to keep myself from closing the space between us, "You should... this isn't..." I had no idea what to say. I was just stammering out parts of things.

She started to lean closer to me. What was she doing? She couldn't be... no. She wouldn't. She didn't want that. She didn't know what she was doing. She was distraught and confused, not herself.

I took a step back. She looked at me with wide eyes, seeming shocked at herself. My mouth was agape and I had no idea what was going to happen next.

I tried to continue the conversation back from when it was coherent, trying to pretend that hadn't happened at all, "It's okay Chloe..." I was incredibly rattled and I barely managed to keep my voice steady, "...I know you didn't mean it. You were just upset. I understand."

It seemed like she could barely breathe and like she was about to panic completely. Whatever she planned on doing she clearly regretted and she was ashamed of. She looked like she was about to pass out but then she started endlessly rambling, "No, it's not okay, I was being a stupid, selfish idiot, I'm sorry I'm just a mess, I don't know why I thought trying that again was a good idea, like I said before, it was a stupid mistake-"

"-Wait, what?" She was making references to the first time we had kissed. Did that mean she had just tried to kiss me again?

She froze, paralyzed, her jaw having dropped. Her cheeks were red and her eyes were glossy, "I uh... I didn't mean..."

"Were you going to-"

"_-No._ No. I would've stopped, I just wasn't thinking..." The way she interrupted me and the quaking of her voice showed how terrified she was, "...It was a mistake. It was a very dumb mistake."

"No, don't. It's okay..." I realized too late that what I said sounded odd.

"It is?" Her voice was small. Timid and weak.

"Uh... yeah I..." I didn't want her to know about my feelings. I was obviously madly in love with her and I was amazed I had been able to restrain myself from her for that long, "... I don't mind. You... weren't going to." No matter how awkward this was getting, I couldn't look away from her eyes.

She opened her mouth very slightly, looking pained and conflicted. She reached toward the towel on her arm, pressing it briefly before removing it with mild caution. I watched as she put it on the nearby sink, her hands shaking, "And what if I had?"

That also caught me completely off guard, "Huh?" She pulled her sleeve down slowly, staring into my eyes.

"What if..." She stepped closer but I was glued to my spot, when normally I would have instinctively moved away, knowing it was a bad idea to have such a small proximity, "...what if I had kissed you?" She got even closer. This was getting out of hand. She was killing me. I literally felt like I was going to die.

"I... I would..." I had no idea what I would do. No idea at all, "...I don't know..."

"Well..." She was looking at my lips now and it made my breath hitch, my heart jumping into my throat. I moved closer before managing to stop the impulsive advance, "...maybe..."

"Chlo, we..." I didn't know what to do. I just stood there like an idiot.

Finally, I guess I had waited too long. My desire to kiss her, to love her, was too strong. It wasn't fair. I couldn't keep myself from her anymore, it felt literally impossible. So I kissed her. And she kissed me back that time. It was less gentle than it had been in the field. I think we were both more aware of what we were doing, me definitely less than her. I felt detached. Not there. I felt her hands moving to the sides of my face, while I remained stiff as a board. I didn't feel right. This didn't feel right. This was wrong. She didn't want this, I knew she didn't. I wasn't one to get my hopes up. Especially when it came to Chloe. She was just appreciative of how much I helped her, and she was... just thinking about the kiss from the field and her perspectives and opinions were temporarily distorted. She would regret this and I didn't want her to be upset.

I turned my head, breaking the kiss despite how much I didn't want to. She let out a sharp breath, seeming very surprised at herself, before frantically pulling her hands away from my face and backing away from me. She was starting to panic all over again. But it wasn't her fault.

"Oh my god did I really just do that?" She asked. Her words were a jumble.

"It's... that was nothing. Don't even mention it."

"Don't mention it? What do you-"

"_-Chloe_." I finally looked at her. I couldn't determine her expression, but she did look scared. And she was blushing. My voice was more harsh than I wanted it to be but I couldn't control it, "Leave it alone. Please, I can't..." I trailed off. Something was in her eyes and on her face, but what was it? I shut my eyes tightly, wanting to cry, wanting to run away.

"Uh... um, yeah. Alright, sure, if you um... if you want..."

"I-I'm tired uh..." I pointed to the razor in the sink, "Get rid of that, please."

"Um... I think it's your dad's?"

"I don't care. I'll be worried sick if you still have that around."

"Beca I'm not going to-"

"_-Chloe._" We locked eyes again, "Please." She stared at me for a while before nodding shakily.

"Sorry. Uh... goodnight."

I didn't say anything else. I just left. And I went into my room, burying my face into my pillow, willing myself not to cry.

At a point during the night, there was a knock on my door. I was really reluctant to answer it, but I eventually did. Chloe stood there, looking uncertain. And kind of scared.

"What is it?" I asked her quietly.

"I just... wanted to say... uh..." She fiddled very nervously with her fingers, not looking at me.

"Say what, Chlo?" My voice was much more gentle than it had been before.

"Um... I..." When she actually looked at me, I could basically see her nerve dwindling with every dragging second of silence, "...nevermind. Nevermind, it's nothing. I'll just uh... go to sleep now." She started to walk away, toward the couch.

"Wait," She turned around immediately with a raised eyebrow, when I realized I had no idea what I planned on saying, "Uh... have a good sleep." _Lame. _I thought to myself.

She gave me a very weak smile before turning to the couch again. I shut the door and tried to sleep myself.

I couldn't.

What was she going to tell me?


End file.
